this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2026
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Granted, the part

The globally recommended app by privacy and security experts, Signal, is now being downloaded massively and tops the Danish Google Play Store

is a little ironic, but you gotta push this winning tide and then work from that.

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[–] plyth@feddit.org -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

the world would need a new client pushed and probably notice something was off.

Not if the US have the support of Google.

[–] Dionysus@leminal.space 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Totally not how the APK teardown community works, but ok.

[–] plyth@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How does APK teardown help if Google can replace the app unnoticed?

[–] Vincent@feddit.nl 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Because there will always people running Signal from a different source, and only one of them is sufficient to notice the server has been tampered with.

(And I'm not sure if they have reproducible builds yet, but if they do, people can also verify that even the Google Play-provided APK does or doesn't match the published source code.)

[–] plyth@feddit.org 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

notice the server has been tampered with.

Which server?

doesn’t match the published source code

People don't control their phone. There is no way of knowing if the installed app is the one that is running.

[–] Vincent@feddit.nl 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Which server?

The server running Signal's server-side code.

People don’t control their phone. There is no way of knowing if the installed app is the one that is running.

Some do, and that's the point: if there's an attempt at tampering, interested security researchers can detect it.

[–] plyth@feddit.org 1 points 12 hours ago

The server running Signal’s server-side code.

What could a client detect? Signal is a US company and will comply with the government. The server can't be trusted.

Some do, and that’s the point: if there’s an attempt at tampering, interested security researchers can detect it.

They can detect if a different app was installed from the store on their phone. That's not useful for anybody to know if their own app is unaltered. Only people of interest will receive a manipulated client. So there is no security in knowing that some people received the original app.

Besides, Google runs the OS. They can change the app at runtime.