The security flaws invoked by Matignon to push Olvid instant messaging onto the smartphones of ministers and their cabinets remained in the throat of the boss of Signal. Even if this popular messaging service is not explicitly mentioned in Elisabeth Borne’s November 22 circular, it is she, along with Telegram and WhatsApp, who is awkwardly targeted by this call for the deployment of Olvid.
“Ok, the French Prime Minister is forcing ministers to use a small French application,” remarks Meredith Whittaker, the boss of Signal, on X (formerly Twitter).
However, she adds, the security flaws cited “are not supported by any evidence and are dangerously misleading”. This type of discourse can in fact lead to a drop in confidence in applications that are nevertheless essential for sensitive audiences.
Audits
Certainly, Olvid, launched in 2019, can claim to be certified by Anssi, the French cyber fire brigade. But “Signal is independently audited and open source, and our protocol has been tested for over ten years,” continues Meredith Whittaker. “We are of the same opinion,” Will Cathcart, the boss of WhatsApp, then tweeted in French in the text, without however going into details.
A logical reaction. For the messaging application, it is vital to defend their reputation, in a sector where low blows between competitors are not rare, as evidenced by this tweet targeting WhatsApp from Pavel Durovthe founder of Telegram.
Signal, the most recognized application, benefited from the publicity stunt of one of the most famous whistleblowers, Edward Snowden.
Opposition not so relevant
Basically, the security of this messaging managed by a foundation is based on “state-of-the-art” end-to-end encryption. It also began three years ago to abandon the use of telephone numbers as profile identifiers – a feature which can expose the identity of people interlocutors. If Signal is very popular, we do not know the precise number of users, probably several tens of millions.
Finally, it remains that it is perhaps not so relevant to oppose Olvid to Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. “Olvid does not have a central server allowing you to find who has an account on Olvid,” notes Baptiste Robert, the boss of the Osint Predicta Lab platform. “It’s a good thing in terms of privacy,” but it’s also “a huge obstacle in terms of virality,” he points out on Xand therefore calls for different uses.
As a minister notes in Le Parisien, “all my European counterparts use WhatsApp or Telegram”. “We all have secure professional telephones,” an advisor also complains,” still quoted by the capital’s daily newspaper.
The latter would be “so secure that they are unusable”. As a reminder of the failure of Teorem phones, jewels which had been abandoned by their sensitive users.