That's the entire point of domain fronting and collateral freedom: to make censorship as expensive as possible for oppresive regimes.

Collateral freedom is like using human shields. You unilaterally decide to involve other innocent people in your fight, and risk their well-being.

The name even hints at that: it's freedom that rests on the targets unwillingness to inflict collateral damage.

Which, questions of morality in the abstract and consent aside, seems to gamble pretty heavily on sensitivity the regimes of concern are decidedly not known for.

They are sensitive to collateral damage, though, otherwise they could just turn off internet access. It's actually pretty easy for a state-level actor.

Why do you think they don't?

But Signal was doing all of this without Amazon's consent. I don't care how noble you think your cause is, dragging other people into your fight against their will is wrong, full stop.

Don't you think that's a needlessly offensive analogy? Signal is not using children to shield themselves from rifle fire.

I think it's quite clear what the point is from Signal's attempt at implementation of the theory as well as your freshly minted wiki page.

That doesn't change the dubious nature of it. Putting other valuable services at risk for a single service's gain is clearly dubious.

> "your Signal"

Just to be clear, I am not affiliated with Signal in any way. I am just a user.

> "your freshly minted wiki page"

I am a regular contributor to Wikipedia, and I created the article on "collateral freedom" in January 2017[1] when I came across the topic because it satisfied Wikipedia's notability guidelines.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Collateral_freedo...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability

You posted that Wikipedia link 4 times in this thread. That's a bit much, and also kind of dodgy to do without mentioning that you wrote it.

> "4 times in this thread. That's a bit much"

Point taken, I'll be more careful in the future.

> "kind of dodgy to do without mentioning that you wrote it"

The article is completely neutral, cites reliable sources, has been reviewed by another editor[1], and abides by all Wikipedia policies. I do not personally gain anything from posting it here.

I didn't think the fact that I initially created the article was relevant to this conversation, because for all intents and purposes, it does not make a difference.[2] The article meets Wikipedia's standards, and anyone is free to edit it subject to the applicable content policies.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&typ...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_content

I see your point, though it still feels a bit dodgy to me, and I suspect to many other HN readers. Fortunately it's a rare and borderline case so we don't need to worry about it too much.

That was a typo (now fixed). Didn't mean to imply you were involved with Signal

What does "innocent" mean in this context? You seem to be using the word to distinguish between people who use the app and other people who don't, but that can't be right. Is it unethical to use a communications app?

> What does "innocent" mean in this context?

Innocent of whatever violation if local law the regime is targeting the app for.

It would be a very particular sort of autocratic state, which could censor communications apps on a blanket basis, but would have to go through some sort of charade with laws and courts for each particular app. Still, the app and its users are different parties.