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1045 sats \ 7 replies \ @kepford 3 Dec 2023
Don't tell anyone. The US government funded and created the Internet. We should all stop using it. They also fund Twitter. Every tool the government helps create isn't bad. This article is interesting but is kinda sensationalist IMO.
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90 sats \ 3 replies \ @kristapsk 3 Dec 2023
Tor was originally developed at US Naval Research Laboratory.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @drlh 4 Dec 2023
And even today almost half of their budget comes from US grants.
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63 sats \ 1 reply \ @kristapsk 4 Dec 2023
Yes, I think that's because it - 1) helps opposition under regimes like Iran, PRC and Russia, 2) it's useful for their own spy operations, 3) anonymity loves company, so it helps to allow everyone to use it to help (2).
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 4 Dec 2023 freebie
That's a great summary of the what I think the real motives could be. Its the most likely and none of this means plebs should not use these technologies.
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283 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 3 Dec 2023
I agree. The title is misleading. The government funding Signal is not the same as the CIA funding it (although it definitely could be the case) nor could I find anything in the article supporting the government removing its funding.
However, I didn't realize the government funded Signal which is a pretty cool fact on its own.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 4 Dec 2023
Indeed
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1 sat \ 0 replies \ @NewsnNudes 3 Dec 2023 freebie
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @stimmy 4 Dec 2023
I've been thinking about Signal's intelligence use off and on the last couple years (as a former military intel guy). What a tool it must have been to keep running sources in Afghanistan after the collapse, for example. In the era of great power competition, plenty of proxy battlegrounds become denied terrain for spooks, and they must surely love robust mobile apps and bitcoin to interface with and pay sources. It'll be interesting to watch what OTF prioritizes if/as the threats from Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, etc. escalate. This article raised my familiarity with the various programs - thanks for sharing!
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140 sats \ 1 reply \ @BlokchainB 3 Dec 2023
The very tech that born Bitcoin came from military operations to share information in secret. The military industrial complex does indeed suck for humanity but for science technology aviation and engineering it has been a massive boom.
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50 sats \ 0 replies \ @stimmy 4 Dec 2023
It's crazy how true this is. Plenty of advances in medicine were similarly born. Heck, even concentrated orange juice is a child of military innovation. I'm just hoping the seeds that sprouted bitcoin meaningfully de-fang the military industrial complex in our lifetime.
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @gunson 4 Dec 2023
The article seems to imply that the US has backdoors into both Signal and Tor 🤔
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @antic 8 Dec 2023
US three letter agencies most certainly control 50%+ of tor nodes on the network. They can trace a lot of activity and users by examining request payload size + exit node traffic + request patterns.
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