Post #2864660

2026-05-19 11:06 UTC

Signal may actually get pushed out of Canada because of Bill C-22, a proposed “lawful access” surveillance law. Signal says it would rather walk than break encryption or start hoovering up metadata for the cops. Good. Some folks seem to think that it could happen in the US as well. This is a big fucking deal. I spent years trying to get people to use PGP and failed miserably, because PGP is where usability goes to die. Signal worked because normal humans could use it. I even got my parents on it. So what’s the plan if Signal gets blocked, banned, or bullied out? Delta Chat? SimpleX? Briar? Carrier pigeons with threat models? Also switching to an app in Canada does not solve the problem because a lot of peeps do cross border comms so it would mean a massive shift in platforms worldwide. Curious what folks are actually migrating to, testing, or setting up before the surveillance state shits the bed completely.

Replies (6)

@cleeyv@kolektiva.social 2026-05-19 12:32

@franklinlopez@kolektiva.social there has been a proposal circulating since last year to use Delta Chat as a fallback if Signal goes down or is unavailable: https://signal-contingency-plan.info/ and there is also a podcast interview with people who worked on this: https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/2025/12/07/signal-contingency-plan-delta-chat-with-fanny-and-mary/

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@bweller@mstdn.social 2026-05-30 02:00

@franklinlopez@kolektiva.social XMPP

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@BoydStephenSmithJr@hachyderm.io 2026-05-30 02:27

@franklinlopez@kolektiva.social > So what’s the plan if Signal gets blocked, banned, or bullied out? Delta Chat? I've heard good things about Delta Chat, but my second E2E messenger is Wire. The only non-Signal messenger EFF endorses is WhatsApp: https://ssd.eff.org/module-categories/tool-guides Best of luck putting together a plan.

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@the_roamer@mastodonapp.uk 2026-05-30 02:32

@franklinlopez@kolektiva.social Carrier pigeons has my vote!

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@me@social.jlamothe.net 2026-05-30 02:45

@franklinlopez@kolektiva.social Canadian here. I've already got my family on DeltaChat. I don't think they know what Signal is.

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@avirr@sfba.social 2026-05-30 14:41

@franklinlopez@kolektiva.social “PGP is where usability goes to die” cracked me up! But that was back in the day when we had open SMTP relays and a whole lot fewer attacks

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