CIA bought an encryption company and used it to spy on clients and countries

Re:CIA bought an encryption company and used it to spy on cl... by cryptos on Wednesday February 12, 2020 @05:47AM (#22307734)

The same could happen with Threema. As much as I like and want to trust Threema, but the story could be repeated, even if I think, that it is not used by governments or military large-scale.

Essentially every closed source crypto application isn't trustworthy. Same is true for operating systems.

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Re:CIA bought an encryption company and used it to spy on cl... by bangboombang on Wednesday February 12, 2020 @05:57AM (#22307784)

Exactly my first thought. I like Threema and one of the reasons I was an early adopter is that the founder worked on m0n0wall before, an OSS firewall that I used for a long time, in contrast to it being just some guy I never heard of. It made me accept the closed source nature. Another big factor was that I indeed consider Switzerland to be a more trustworthy/neutral party in general when it comes to global politics, but this obviously doesn't have to apply to every single individual in that country.

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Re:CIA bought an encryption company and used it to spy on cl... by _-___________-_ on Wednesday February 12, 2020 @06:00AM (#22307799)

Why use Threema when there are alternatives that are not closed-source? You had to begin to use Threema, which presumably carries the same difficulty as beginning to use something which isn't as questionable.

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Re:CIA bought an encryption company and used it to spy on cl... by mmPzf on Wednesday February 12, 2020 @07:08AM (#22308142)

A big plus for me was the option of using it without mapping the user account to a phone number, something that e.g. Signal doesn't allow.

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Re:CIA bought an encryption company and used it to spy on cl... by bangboombang on Wednesday February 12, 2020 @07:18AM (#22308193)

It was consensus between colleagues/friends. And because you still need to trust open source software as well. I certainly don't have the time to review the code, and the "somebody else will do a thorough code review" fallacy should be well known by know. As said, Threema at least had a name attached to it that I somewhat trust.

Telegram for example doesn't exactly tick the "not as questionable" box for me, not least because it isn't entirely open source either, but also because I always find it weird if someone is pouring money into software that is available for free, with no obvious benefit for them in return.

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Re:CIA bought an encryption company and used it to spy on cl... by jo-m on Wednesday February 12, 2020 @07:27AM (#22308239)

Side note: Threema is a Swiss "GmbH" corporation, meaning that all the owners and the number of their shares are public in the Swiss commercial register [0], and those have to be natural persons. So it would be slightly harder to hide ownership. Those people can still be straw men, though.

[0]: https://sz.chregister.ch/cr-portal/auszug/auszug.xhtml?uid=C...

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Re:CIA bought an encryption company and used it to spy on cl... by PappaPatat on Wednesday February 12, 2020 @07:20AM (#22308206)

I take it you name Threema just because it's Swiss like the Crypto AG or is there a specific reason to single them out?

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Re:CIA bought an encryption company and used it to spy on cl... by cryptos on Wednesday February 12, 2020 @09:44AM (#22309158)

crypto + Switzerland just triggered the thought. Nothing else is special about my example.

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Re:CIA bought an encryption company and used it to spy on cl... by PeterStuer on Wednesday February 12, 2020 @06:48AM (#22308033)

While you are not wrong, it would be naive to assume key Open Source projects are not infiltrated by the CIA.

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