Threema setzt auch mit neuem Besitzer auf Datenschutz und Swissness
www.srf.ch
Der Schweizer Messenger Threema erhält einen neuen Eigentümer aus Deutschland. Am Datenschutz soll sich nichts ändern.

Translated from German (with DeepL):

The Swiss messenger service Threema is being acquired by the German investment company Comitis Capital. Both the company and Threema itself emphasize that the arrival of the new investor will not lead to any significant changes for the time being. The company headquarters and servers will remain in Switzerland, and the management team will stay unchanged.

A financial investor with a broad portfolio

Comitis Capital is a young private equity firm, not a technology company. It invests in various industries, including a UK-based supplier of vegan meat alternatives and a manufacturer of dog accessories.

Its business model consists of providing financial support to promising companies so that they can grow and establish themselves internationally. “Comitis now clearly sees this potential in Threema too,” says SRF digital editor Tanja Eder.

Data protection as a business model

The strong focus on data protection is considered a key strength of the messenger. Precisely because US tech companies are coming under increasing criticism and digital sovereignty is gaining in importance, Comitis sees this aspect as a clear unique selling point.

Whether this will remain the case in the long term is unclear, according to Eder. If Comitis were to conclude at some point that it would be more profitable to collect Threema customer data or sell the company, no one could prevent them from doing so.

Trust in the authorities remains an issue

In Switzerland, federal authorities and the military also use Threema for internal communication. Even though everyone involved is aware that there is no such thing as absolute security, Threema still has advantages over its competitors.

For example, Threema’s source code is openly accessible. Experts in the fields of data protection, IT security, and research regularly check whether the company is keeping its promises. Government agencies can also carry out their own checks.

Hardly any alternatives on the market

Good alternatives to Threema are rare. “Apart from WhatsApp, which dominates the market, there is simply not much room for other messenger services,” notes the digital editor.

Signal is considered another secure messenger alongside Threema. However, it is operated from the US, albeit by a non-profit foundation and financed by donations. In Switzerland, Proton offers encrypted emails, but does not have its own messenger service.

“Given this limited offering, we can only hope that privacy-friendly communication services will gain in importance in the future,” says Eder.

  • machiavellian@lemmy.ml
    6·
    23 hours ago

    Deltachat can’t be considered as private as Signal, SimpleX, Briar, Threema or Cwtch due to the fact that it’s based on the mail protocol. The mail protocol will always leak metadata (who, to whom, where and when) because it could’t function otherwise. And because we live in a world of surveillence, metadata can be oftentimes more valuable than the message itself.

    Also saying that deltachat is unblockable because it is based on the mail protocol would be the same as saying that every app utilizing VOIP is unblockable because it uses the TCP/IP stack and blocking it would render the internet unusuable.

    • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
      51·
      23 hours ago

      The metadata-issue is addressed in their FAQ

      And to the blocking issue:

      There are significant benefits to using email as transport in a hostile network environment. As mentioned above, it is infeasible to block email protocols across a network, because everyone relies on email for everything. Since there’s no way to differentiate Delta Chat messages from emails on a network, Delta Chat protocols can’t be blocked without blocking all email. Individual Delta Chat servers can be blocked, but the protocol cannot be blocked network-wide.

      From signal-contingency-plan.info

      • machiavellian@lemmy.ml
        4·
        12 hours ago

        Unlike most other messengers, Delta Chat apps do not store any metadata about contacts or groups on servers, also not in encrypted form. Instead, all group metadata is end-to-end encrypted and stored on end-user devices, only. Servers can therefore only see:

        • the sender and receiver addresses and
        • the message size.

        By default, the addresses are randomly generated. All other message, contact and group metadata resides in the end-to-end encrypted part of messages.

        https://delta.chat/en/help#message-metadata

        > Doesn’t store any metadata on servers

        > Servers still see the sender and reciever and the message size

        Explain how this is not contradictory.

        Furthermore my original argument on protocol blocking still stands (if almost all communication platforms rely on a widely used protocol, the blocking of which is infeasble, then how is this a feature noone else besides deltachat has).

        And as the FAQ brilliantly illustrates, you don’t have to block the mail protocol to inhibit deltachat users from communicating. All you have to do, is just shut down the relays which are crucial to masking your metadata.

        Speaking of relays, all they do is transfer the trust. Without using relays you have to trust that normal mail servers wont’t log your activity (they do). With relays you have to trust that the relay operators won’t log your activity.