The mysticism that has allowed tech companies to make billions of dollars from surveillance is finally dissolving, the boss of the encrypted messaging app Signal told AFP.
The mysticism that has allowed tech companies to make billions of dollars from surveillance is finally dissolving, the boss of the encrypted messaging app Signal told AFP.
Meredith Whittaker, who helped organize a staff strike in 2018 over working conditions after working for years at Google, said that when the industry first started using technology in 2006, technology was “appreciated” and ” They were worshiped,” he said.
“The idea that technology represents the pinnacle of innovation and progress has been pretty pervasive in government officials and popular culture,” she said in a bystander interview at the Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon this week. .
But legislators and users are now considering the “well-documented harm of allowing a handful of large corporations to have the power to oversee nearly every aspect of human life.” .
She recognizes that people are seeking out apps like Signal because they recognize the “real dangers of leaving their most intimate thoughts, places and networks of friends in the hands of corporate and national surveillance actors.” He said it was because
Whittaker, who founded the AI Now Institute at New York University in 2017 and has advised US government regulators, is a prominent critic of business models built on extracting personal data for use in targeted advertising. is emerging as
– “Punch over our weight” –
She took over as president of Signal two months ago and is pushing the app to become a true alternative to the likes of WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage.
“We want anyone in the world to be able to pick up their device, open Signal instantly, and use it to communicate with others,” she said.
The odds are stacking up against her company. According to her, WhatsApp has about 1,000 engineers and thousands of support her staff, but her company has only 40 people in total.
The app is maintained by a non-profit organization, the Signal Foundation, and has just started soliciting small donations from users to keep the app going.
The company’s David vs Goliath deeds came to light in January when co-founder Moxie Marlinspike stepped down as CEO, detailing how difficult it was to maintain the app.
“I wrote all the Android code, wrote all the server code, was the sole person in charge of the service, facilitated all product development, and managed everyone,” he wrote in a blog post at the time. was
But Signal has been downloaded more than 100 million times, and although Whittaker didn’t confirm that number, a report last year estimated it has 40 million regular users.
And she doesn’t shy away from the job, arguing that having a talented staff helps her close the gap with her competitors.
“We have a very capable small team, but we are punching well beyond our own weight,” she said.
– “Gold Standard” –
Signal has more friends who are privacy advocates.
Email services like Proton, search engine DuckDuckGo, and myriad data analytics companies all market themselves as privacy-focused apps.
Whittaker also emphasized that Signal creates the “gold standard” open-source encryption protocol used by WhatsApp and others.
But the goal isn’t to emulate other players on the field to constantly push fancy new features.
“Our growth ambitions are not of the same nature as those of a for-profit surveillance company,” she said.
Instead, the goal was to create a “cryptographic network effect”.
This helps ensure that “everyone in the world actually has the option to communicate privately without being subject to extensive surveillance by countries or corporations.”
