Signal has been blocked by Venezuela and Russia

It’s like a medal of honor for a privacy preserving app 😄

Indeed. If whatsapp isn't on the list, then I have all the confirmation I need.
- The Russian government has also allegedly begun preparations to block the WhatsApp messaging app.
  https://kyivindependent.com/messenger-signal-blocked-in-russia-media-says/
- Zucks check didn't clear yet.
- https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/maduro-calls-venezuelans-to-delete-whatsapp-in-growing-crackdown/ar-AA1oi4vz
  Maduro uninstalled whatsapp live on television a few days ago
"Banned in 15 dicatorships!"

could matrix.org be as easily blocked, since it's decentralized I'm wondering?

At least it means that Signal is working as intended if they are blocking it, I guess that they don't have back doors.

Being decentralized prevents DNS or IP blocks but not blocks through DPI.
Signal has an option to masquerade it's traffic as regular HTTPS, I don't know if Matrix can do such a thing.
https://x.com/signalapp/status/1821979304626155930
- I can answer this! All matrix calls are over https APIs. Ports and addresses are stored in a text file on the base domain or in DNS txt entry.
Matrix is in fact decentralized but in reality it is not so much, I don't know the number exactly but the majority of users use the matrix.org server
- Those numbers only include instances that have telemetry enabled
- People who live in countries where DNS and IP blocks are common probably use a different server. I've been running my own for over a year and it works like a dream
could matrix.org be as easily blocked, since it’s decentralized I’m wondering?>
Or SimpleX?
- It cannot be easily blocked especially if you use your own homeserver every homeserver replicates the channel and it can operate without the original server! That's why signal and telegram are inherently flawed.
To be devils advocate in a sense, this may mean that it doesn't have any backdoors that Russia or Venezuela can use, but the NSA or something still could have one of their own.
- Matrix doesn't have encryption as the default
  Also Signal doesn't have any backdoors. I can say that with high certainty as it has been audited more than any other messager.
Yes

blocks appear to be part of a crackdown on internal dissent in both countries.

Or... you know... at least for Venezuela, the USA constantly fucking around with their elections and politics and local assets using Signal or something. Maybe, I dunno?

Yeah. Telegram, should be next, there's a huge risk with it too. And email! Social networks too, just in case. And postal mail, we can't forget that. We should crack down any form of uncensored communication.
All for the benefit of the people, of course. \s
- I mean signal was funded in part by the US intelligence community up until last year.
- In UK don't ban them, but jail you if they don't like your posts, more democratic.
- Self defense is self defense, would we expect some different behavior from a country being attacked from outside interests with publicly accessible end to end encryption services?
- they do seem to have blocked reddit and twitter
- We can't have individual thinkers running around can we. We need a shared vision that is dictated from the top down.
I'm pretty sure Venezuela was unstable before the US started getting involved.
Anyway Signal is secure so that shouldn't be the problem. It has more to do with the government working to crush civil liberties and independent thought.
Same story in all authoritarian countries
- First no Venezuela was stable before US medeling.
  Second, "is secure" is quite a leap, it is funded to a sickening extent by the United States government, has gone about a year before opening up its source code, and is in the US where there is a law that says if the US government says show us everything and keep quiet, they have to do that. There are real concerns
  Or you can uncriticaly say "Athoritarian Country" with no defineing term there, or real understanding of Athoritarianism and disreguard all concerns from these countries.

Would peer to peer apps be resistant to this sort of thing?

Yes, but you'll have to install them from sources other than what governments deem official. Like F-droid.
Now, if they block p2p traffic that's a different story
- I am totally cool with F-droid.
It depends. Somehow it has to discover the peers. Other than that, they could block traffic between residential IP addresses and there goes large part of the P2P network
Peer to peer apps do not work without a centralized relay to get you around the CG-Nat that cellphones live behind. So they're not really peer to peer. You would be playing whack-a-mole with the relays, having to spin them up as they get blocked. Many ISPs implement CG-NAT as well. Its really dependent on how the network providers structure things. Someone from the country with local knowledge would have to test it.
- IPv6 doesn't need CGNAT. So as long as it's capable of doing IPv6, it can directly communicate peer to peer using globally unique addresses. How do I know this? Simple because my ISP on IPv4 is completely CGNAT and I cannot get anything past it. So I am completely forced to use IPv6 for any service I want to run and access from outside my network.
- IPv6 doesn't need CGnet. So as long as it's capable of doing IPv6, it can directly communicate peer to peer using globally unique addresses. How do I know this? Simple because my ISP on IPv4 is completely CG NAT and I cannot get anything past it. So I am completely forced to use IPv6 for any service I want to run and access from outside my network.

Signal honored!

why telegram is not blocked? makes you think...

WhatsApp supposedly uses Signal protocol.
Why is THAT not blocked? Certainly they wouldnt roll their own encryption and bypass Signal security protocols after having Moxie come in, right? Right????
- Russia is reportedly planning to block WhatsApp as well.
- It is owned by Meta and is proprietary
Telegram is not secure, I guess if you can listen to it better not block it.
I mean it was blocked before Signal was blocked. Russia somewhat famously badly broke their Internet trying to shutdown telegram... and eventually gave up.
I'm guessing Signal finally has enough market share to get the Russian government's attention but not enough market share that they think the web of proxies that kept Telegram online will keep Signal online.
- and eventually gave up
  or maybe they came to an agreement on mutually beneficial terms
On April 16, 2018, the Russian government began blocking access to Telegram, an instant messaging service. The blocking led to interruptions in the operation of many third-party services, but practically did not affect the availability of Telegram in Russia. It was officially unblocked on June 19, 2020
Some say it was unblocked because they made a deal with Durov. Another opinion is that too many people and services including officials continued to rely on it even during the time it was blocked. Regardless, Telegram did a huge job on circumventing those blocks.
It isn't private

I wrote this, but I'd also like to add Drew Devault - Why I don't trust signal. There's a huge disconnect between what privacy advocates are saying about signal, and what reddit "privacy" communities think about it. If you read the article I linked, you'll see its because the Open Technology Fund (a US state-run entity), actively pushes signal in privacy spaces.
- Signal is secure and anyone who says it isn't needs to have very strong evidence. It has been audited by hundreds of people at this point.
Signal might be one of the most audited pieces of software in existence. Any criticism is likely either coming from or is supported by countries that fear encryption such as China, Russia and Iran.
The big downsides of Signal are that it requires a phone number and that is depends on Signals servers. That is it. You messages are completely safe as all messagers use the same underlying cryptography.
- The audits mean nothing for a server domiciled in a Five-Eyes country. Signal has your phone number, and the other phone numbers you talk to (social connection graphs), and it is 100% illegal for them to tell you that they've been issued a national security letter divulging that information.
- Metadata is data. While we can be pretty sure that message contents are secure we have to rely on trust for the metadata.
  I use Signal and trust it way more than most other apps but still, one have to be careful, a state actor could still find ways.

Honestly I would've expected it to be blocked much earlier

You need a certain market saturation before a ban becomes useful. If very few people are using the service, there's little incentive to invest time/energy in a block.
I suspect the recent wave of riots in the wake of the election is driving the urgency.
would have* expected it
- That's what would've means?

matrix stays winning

Matrix isn't secure depending on how you use it. It also doesn't protect individual identities terribly well.
Simplex Chat would be the better option however the main Simplex Chat server and matrix server could end up blocked as well.
- Matrix is entirely self-hostable, and you can turn off both federation, and the requirements for any linkable identifiers.
  Signal by contrast requires your phone number, isn't self-hostable, and is based in a five-eyes country.
- plenty of servers for both though
Probably mostly because almost nobody uses it.
- Couple million is absolutely nobody /s

So signel proxy for the win?

https://signal.org/blog/proxy-please

Why countries that do not prosecute political dissent bock apps used by political dissenters? /s

Smart move, considering Signal is a US-hosted centralized service that has to comply with US NSL laws.

These comments below seem to be unaware of all the issues privacy advocates have of signal.

I don't get it, are you really arguing that Russia and Venezuela are blocking Signal to protect their citizens from American snooping?
- All countries should ban US-domiciled companies like signal, or any communication platform hosted in Five-eyes countries, and especially ones domiciled in the US, which has to adhere to National Security Letters.
  https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters/faq
Signal has strong cryptographic protocols that are not easily broken. It pioneered the use of double ratchet encryption. (Different keys for each message)
It does expose phone numbers to Signal and the US government but that may or may no be a concern depending on what your threat model is.
they hated him because he spoke the truth smh
use matrix, briar, simplex in that order
also what email platforms + vpns do you recommend, out of curiosity?
- Matrix isn't as good as Simplex Chat. Briar is good as it is very hard to censor but it does use battery and requires you to be only all the time. (unless you count Briar mailbox)

Unless you click the “unblock” button.

Gotta love Verge.

Are you mad at verge for not expounding on what that button does, or trying to display the issue itself?
https://signal.org/blog/proxy-please/ in case

they figured it out that it's CIA :)