Signal app to Australia: Good luck with that crypto ban

Enlarge / Graffiti urging people to use Signal, a highly-encrypted messaging app, is spray-painted on a wall during a protest on February 1, 2017 in Berkeley, California. (credit: Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)

Signal, one of the most secure messaging apps, essentially told Australia this week that its attempts to thwart strong crypto are rather cute.

"By design, Signal does not have a record of your contacts, social graph, conversation list, location, user avatar, user profile name, group memberships, group titles, or group avatars," Joshua Lund, a Signal developer wrote. "The end-to-end encrypted contents of every message and voice/video call are protected by keys that are entirely inaccessible to us. In most cases now we don't even have access to who is messaging whom."

Lund is referring to a recent law passed in Australia that will fine companies that do not comply with government demands for encrypted data up to AUS$10 million.

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