Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: We can't live a full, dignified life with the ability
Speaker 2: to questioned authority, to test ideas, to blow off steam.
Speaker 2: If we don't have private communication, you can't do military strategy,
Speaker 2: you can't do human rights work, you can't do journalism
Speaker 2: full stop.
Speaker 1: Meredith Whittaker, tech boss and defender of privacy. I got
Speaker 1: the impression that by the end of your time at
Speaker 1: Google you were kind of a thorn in management side.
Speaker 2: It wasn't Meredith versus Google. There is a round swell
Speaker 2: of sentiment within tech now that is concerned with the
Speaker 2: fundamental question, how do we make sure that we are
Speaker 2: collectively governing this powerful technology so that those who would
Speaker 2: do harm with it aren't those who are in control.
Speaker 1: From Blueberg Weekend. This is the Michelle Hussein Show. I'm
Speaker 1: Michelle Hussein. Whether it's social media, bands, AI and military strikes,
Speaker 1: the destruction of jobs, debates about tech in our lives
Speaker 1: are all around us every day. I'm old enough to
Speaker 1: remember the nineties and the emergence of what today we
Speaker 1: call big tech. Back then, the companies were perceived as benign.
Speaker 1: They were full of important and exciting features that would
Speaker 1: connect us to people around the world, and they were
Speaker 1: pretty much free to use. Today the story is much
Speaker 1: more complex, But even so, how many of us really
Speaker 1: think hard enough about our choices in tech, the products
Speaker 1: we use, and what the companies get out of us. Well,
Speaker 1: this conversation is with Meredith Whitaker, a tech boss who
Speaker 1: is different from her peers, partly because her product, the
Speaker 1: messaging app Signal, is nonprofit and also it has a
Speaker 1: deep and she says, unshakable promise to barely even collect
Speaker 1: our data, let alone sell it. If you're not a
Speaker 1: Signal user, but you know you've heard about it somewhere.
Speaker 1: It's probably because of the moment last year when the
Speaker 1: then US National Security Advisor added a journalist to what
Speaker 1: should have been a classified group chat about military action
Speaker 1: in Yemen. It became known, of course as Signalgate. So
Speaker 1: that's some of the background. But as Meredith Whittaker came
Speaker 1: into the studio, there was a live issue in the UK,
Speaker 1: the government's plans to make it impossible for under eighteens
Speaker 1: to take or share nude images on their phones. As
Speaker 1: you'll hear, she's got views on that, both the principle
Speaker 1: and whether the idea is even workable, but I had
Speaker 1: questions too on whether everyone has a right to be private,
Speaker 1: what about crime, abuse, terrorism? Ultimately, I hope you find
Speaker 1: this as compelling as I did. Meredith Whittaker is able
Speaker 1: to see the ironies in her world, to spot the
Speaker 1: moments of humor even and at the same time make
Speaker 1: us think. Obviously, I think some people listening to this
Speaker 1: might be pretty new to Signal, but I think anything
Speaker 1: that you can say to let us into your world
Speaker 1: and to tell us about you as well as what
Speaker 1: you do, I think it will be great to.
Speaker 2: I'll do my best. I think Signal is a bit
Speaker 2: more interesting than I am.
Speaker 1: But Meredith, I guess I would just love to start
Speaker 1: by asking about your own journey towards what you do now.
Speaker 1: Because you worked in big tech at Google for more
Speaker 1: than a decade, was there a moment in that period
Speaker 1: where you really started to think differently about privacy and data,
Speaker 1: a moment you can identify that's kind of critical in
Speaker 1: the development of your story.
Speaker 2: I have considered that question. Is there a point where
Speaker 2: I tripped over something or a revelation happened? You know
Speaker 2: Athena with birth from the forehead of Zeus and suddenly
Speaker 2: there's insight. I don't think it was a moment. I
Speaker 2: come out of an non traditional background for somebody working
Speaker 2: in the tech industry. I studied literature, I said, rhetoric.
Speaker 2: I was always an arts kid, and that's still where I,
Speaker 2: as a human being, really live. I love it, and
Speaker 2: so I was calibrated to perhaps ask different questions or
Speaker 2: just you know, pursue different inquiries. But I think it
Speaker 2: was it was over time beginning to understand Google's business models,
Speaker 2: the political economic forces that were animating the company. After
Speaker 2: coming in, as they say, a novice, I did not
Speaker 2: pursue computer science in school. I was not interested in tech.
Speaker 2: I did not get you know, a Commodore sixty four
Speaker 2: when I was a kid, and everything took off from there.
Speaker 2: And I loved computers right, which you know, the classic
Speaker 2: origin story. And so I had to ask really really
Speaker 2: fundamental questions. YEA, what is a server?
Speaker 1: Would I be right in thinking of you as a
Speaker 1: bit of a contrarian or maybe a rebel. I know
Speaker 1: that there was a key moment in your time at
Speaker 1: Google where you organized colleagues against a Pentagon contract that
Speaker 1: you realized was being signed.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't adopt those terms myself. You know, I am
Speaker 2: somebody who thinks it's really important to maintain the dignity
Speaker 2: of my analysis. Like if something is true, if there
Speaker 2: is empirical evidence supporting a conclusion, if we can look
Speaker 2: at the map and clearly see that there's a problem
Speaker 2: on the road ahead, then I am not somebody who's
Speaker 2: going to go along to get along with a convenient delusion.
Speaker 2: Those things, once I see them, I am not going
Speaker 2: to veer away or pretend that they don't exist, even
Speaker 2: if I have to take steps that might be scary
Speaker 2: or against the grain to do that.
Speaker 1: So I got the impression that by the end of
Speaker 1: your time at Google you were kind of a thorn
Speaker 1: in management side. You were organizing walkouts on other issues,
Speaker 1: ethics issues, and they saw you as a problem.
Speaker 2: Well, people who would like to put the goals of
Speaker 2: infinite growth, infinite revenue profit above the reality of the
Speaker 2: harms or the problems or the choppy seas on the
Speaker 2: road ahead don't like people who point that out. But
Speaker 2: I do want to sort of frame that it wasn't
Speaker 2: It wasn't Meredith versus Google. This was a groundswell from
Speaker 2: thousands of people.
Speaker 1: The workouts and the walkouts at the time where people
Speaker 1: came out in big numbers too. We see protested different things.
Speaker 2: Let's go today Deep mind employees just unionized, concerned about
Speaker 2: the application of that technology for harmful purposes. You have
Speaker 2: open AI employees beginning to organize or that's being reported
Speaker 2: in preparation for the IPO. There is a sort of
Speaker 2: groundswell of sentiment within tech now and outside of tech
Speaker 2: that is concerned with the fundamental question that I don't
Speaker 2: think can be avoided by anyone. How do we make
Speaker 2: sure that we are collectively governing this powerful technology so
Speaker 2: that those who would do harm with it aren't those
Speaker 2: who are in control. How do we scrutinize it, how
Speaker 2: do we put guardrails on it, How do we determine
Speaker 2: where it's used, where it's not used, how it's developed,
Speaker 2: and what the goals of that development are. Those are
Speaker 2: fun mental question that every world leader, every government, every
Speaker 2: community considering a data center needs to be looking at
Speaker 2: and where the leverage for governance where that fulcrum exists
Speaker 2: is an open question given the bipolar tech world we
Speaker 2: live in and the volatile geopolitical environment, where.
Speaker 1: The fact that the tech will seems to becoming ever
Speaker 1: more powerful, not least with the amount of interest in
Speaker 1: the IPOs. Absolutely, I want to take a moment to
Speaker 1: really understand what you do at Signal. The core promise
Speaker 1: is end to end encryption, which means only the sender
Speaker 1: or receiver can see the actual content of the messages.
Speaker 1: So how is that different from WhatsApp, which also has
Speaker 1: the same promise.
Speaker 2: Well, the core promise of Signal is that in the
Speaker 2: digital world, where almost every micro action is surveilled, turned
Speaker 2: into data, processed in models, sold to advertisers, sold to
Speaker 2: data brokers, et cetera, et cetera, we preserve the fundamental
Speaker 2: human right to private communication full stop, which has existed
Speaker 2: for hundreds of thousands of years. That was the norm.
Speaker 2: If you and I are talking, that conversation is gone
Speaker 2: once we are done talking and part ways. And we
Speaker 2: have moved into a world where that ground has shifted
Speaker 2: dramatically out from under us, and that is no longer true.
Speaker 2: And we think that it is considered a fundamental human
Speaker 2: right for a very good reason. We can't live a full,
Speaker 2: dignified life with the ability to questioned authority, to have
Speaker 2: different relationships with people to test ideas, to blow off steam.
Speaker 2: If we don't have private communication, you can't do military strategy,
Speaker 2: you can't do human rights work, you can't do journalism
Speaker 2: full stop. So Signal provides that in as robust away
Speaker 2: as we can. We developed the encryption protocol, the Signal protocol,
Speaker 2: that moved the field forward. In twenty thirteen, we introduced
Speaker 2: that to the world, and that is the co of
Speaker 2: our offering that protects the message content. On Signal, what
Speaker 2: you send only goes between sender and receiver. Only the
Speaker 2: people you're talking to know it. WhatsApp licenses that protocol
Speaker 2: from us, and they also apply it to many of
Speaker 2: their messages that are sent. What'sapp for business is excluded
Speaker 2: from this in many cases, but they protect message content,
Speaker 2: so what you type, what you say is to end encrypted.
Speaker 2: They can't see it only the center and receiver. However,
Speaker 2: you have to look at privacy beyond simply the message content,
Speaker 2: and this is where there are very fundamental differences between
Speaker 2: WhatsApp and Signal. Signal also applies encryption to protect what
Speaker 2: is called metadata, but that is extremely intimate. It's extremely
Speaker 2: revealing data. It's your profile, photo, your name, who you
Speaker 2: talk to when you talk to them, who's in your groups,
Speaker 2: how often you chat? When did you text your oncologists?
Speaker 2: When did you text your things therapist, When did you
Speaker 2: text your lawyer? When did you text someone or your
Speaker 2: best friend? All of that information. So WhatsApp does collect that,
Speaker 2: we don't. We go out of our way to collect
Speaker 2: as close to no data as possible, and we make
Speaker 2: that open source.
Speaker 1: Is it really that revealing? The other data, the message data?
Speaker 1: If someone can see that I wake up at six
Speaker 1: in the morning and I send a lot of messages
Speaker 1: at that time, and they might even know who I'm messaging,
Speaker 1: my mother, my colleagues, or people and other time zones,
Speaker 1: is that really so revealing of me?
Speaker 2: Oh? It absolutely can be. Are you messaging your FBI
Speaker 2: contact because you want to be a source. Are you
Speaker 2: messaging a whistleblower attorney because you found corruption in your
Speaker 2: workplace and want to report that. Are you messaging a
Speaker 2: divorce lawyer? Are you messaging an oncologist? Yeah?
Speaker 1: But what I mean is, again it's like WhatsApp, for example,
Speaker 1: could see, oh that other person is an oncologist, or
Speaker 1: that other person is in law enforcement or is a source.
Speaker 1: But again they can't see beyond that what the actual
Speaker 1: content is that I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Well, no, not ye, assuming that's not on what's up
Speaker 2: for business? However, I think we have to expand beyond
Speaker 2: simply the application and look at what'sapp being owned by Meta,
Speaker 2: the parent company Meta is a massive data collecting entity.
Speaker 2: Surveillance advertising is the heart of their business model. So okay,
Speaker 2: you message your oncologists. All right, let's join that data
Speaker 2: with all of the other data we have in hand.
Speaker 2: We buy credit data from data brokers, we have Facebook data,
Speaker 2: we have Instagram data, and we have powerful AI models
Speaker 2: that can find patterns and search across the.
Speaker 1: State see ads for cancer drugs on Instagram? Is that
Speaker 1: what suggesting let's feelings? Advertising is a very inflammatory way
Speaker 1: to put it.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's a technical descriptor, right, It's targeted
Speaker 2: advertising based on the collection of data that reveals or
Speaker 2: purportedly reveals certain qualities of you and what you might like.
Speaker 2: Let's take another example. You're messaging a whistleblower attorney and
Speaker 2: it's very high, high risk, and you know the corruption
Speaker 2: that you found is extreme, so they know, you know, okay,
Speaker 2: this is this is whistleblower aid An organization that helps
Speaker 2: with that. Okay, it started messaging. Now okay, this is
Speaker 2: the contact. Okay, well you know what could they do
Speaker 2: with that? What could they reveal? Could that be subpoena?
Speaker 2: Could that be revealed to your employer? The fundamental answer
Speaker 2: is that, yes, this data is extremely revealing. It reveals
Speaker 2: patterns about you. We could hypothesize, but we know already
Speaker 2: that there's a woman who went to jail in the
Speaker 2: US because Meta turned over DMS on Facebook messenger between
Speaker 2: her and her daughter that showed her helping her daughter
Speaker 2: access and deal with reproductive care in the state of Nebraska.
Speaker 1: Do you find it frustrating then, when you see people
Speaker 1: not care about their privacy even like some people wouldn't
Speaker 1: be even be aware, but people who are aware but
Speaker 1: just think this is the price I pay for these
Speaker 1: platforms being free at the point of use, or maybe
Speaker 1: younger people especially who just think that there's nothing really
Speaker 1: in their life that they would mind being in the
Speaker 1: public domain.
Speaker 2: You know, I find that frustrating when the argument that
Speaker 2: no one cares about privacy is leveraged by these firms
Speaker 2: to justify what they're doing. It. Don't actually find it
Speaker 2: frustrating when people who really, in my view, have little
Speaker 2: choice say you know, hey, I can't do anything about this.
Speaker 2: I'm going to delete that from my long list of
Speaker 2: worries because I don't feel that I am empowered to
Speaker 2: act on this. I actually don't believe that people don't
Speaker 2: care about privacy, but I believe that the stakes are
Speaker 2: very obscure, and we're all living in a world where
Speaker 2: we have dishes to do, we have bills to pay,
Speaker 2: we have things that are right on our doorstep to
Speaker 2: deal with, and thinking about data flows and privacy legislation
Speaker 2: is probably pretty far down on our list of concerns.
Speaker 1: You had two big moments in the growth of Signal,
Speaker 1: both of which I remember twenty thirteen when Edward Snowden
Speaker 1: used it and trusted it to talk to journalists about
Speaker 1: US and surveillance. And the second was Signal Gate last year,
Speaker 1: when a journalist was added to a supposedly highly classified
Speaker 1: Trump administration discussion on military action. When the second happened,
Speaker 1: what did you think, this is like a great advertisement
Speaker 1: for Signal because it's secure enough for the US government,
Speaker 1: Or I thought, WHOA.
Speaker 2: What's going on this morning? This is this is an
Speaker 2: interesting story. You know, the article hit my feed the
Speaker 2: same time it hit anyone else's feed, and I think
Speaker 2: I had to read it twice to really let it
Speaker 2: sink in, because it read almost like a telenovela. What
Speaker 2: I didn't anticipate after reading it initially was that Signal
Speaker 2: would become a main character and then it would become
Speaker 2: a story about Signal. And what I was primarily concerned
Speaker 2: about is it you know, suddenly Signal was being reported on,
Speaker 2: spoken about by millions of people who weren't familiar with
Speaker 2: the intricacies of encrypted messaging or the technology itself, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to prevent misinformation that could hinder signal or
Speaker 2: misinform people who you know, often need to choose signal
Speaker 2: in life or death concept.
Speaker 1: Cause this was essentially about human frailty, someone who shouldn't
Speaker 1: have been added to that chat being added, And your
Speaker 1: worry was that it would make it look like Signal
Speaker 1: itself was insecure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be framed as a problem with Signal
Speaker 2: or a problem with privacy or you know. That was
Speaker 2: a very volatile, very heightened news cycle, so how that
Speaker 2: would turn out was not clear, But yes, I mean,
Speaker 2: this was ultimately men's thumbs doing things that is not
Speaker 2: something an application developer can take its.
Speaker 1: Was it good for numbers?
Speaker 2: It was, Yeah, it's turned out well for us. We
Speaker 2: saw growth across the US, across the world, and we've
Speaker 2: seen pretty steady growth since then.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you, Meredith, how you reconcile yourself with
Speaker 1: where your product is being used by people to do
Speaker 1: harm to others and particularly the example of child sexual abuse?
Speaker 1: Am I right in thinking that if p defiles abuses
Speaker 1: are using Signal to circulate images of child sexual abuse,
Speaker 1: that can happen without them fearing that you will hand
Speaker 1: over data to law enforcement.
Speaker 2: We go out of our way to not be a
Speaker 2: social media company, so we could pump our numbers fairly
Speaker 2: easily if we added things like broadcast channels or features
Speaker 2: that allowed you to find people with similar interests and
Speaker 2: you meet strangers on Signal. But Signal has made a
Speaker 2: very conscientious choice to stay in our narrow lane as
Speaker 2: an interpersonal communications app, which means you have to encounter
Speaker 2: the person you're talking to in some capacity that is
Speaker 2: not a viral finder friend feed.
Speaker 1: That's outside the app essentially. Yeah, But once you do
Speaker 1: find that person, you can be sure that anything you
Speaker 1: share with them is free.
Speaker 2: That is outside. That is a sign promise. We are
Speaker 2: open source. We are you know, people audit our code regularly.
Speaker 2: We have the open source community looking at our code.
Speaker 2: We cannot collect that data, we cannot turn that data
Speaker 2: over and you know, look, we limit the features that
Speaker 2: allow virality, We limit the features that allow mass distribution,
Speaker 2: and we do that very conscientiously. I also need to
Speaker 2: make a fundamental point, that is, you know, it is
Speaker 2: simply true that encryption either works for everyone or it
Speaker 2: works for no one. There is no way to have
Speaker 2: a golden key or a special back door or access
Speaker 2: just for the good guys.
Speaker 1: And do you have a struggle with that knowing that
Speaker 1: there will be people who are using it for the
Speaker 1: most abusive possible images of children who are on signal?
Speaker 1: Right now, are there moments where you find that hard
Speaker 1: to reconcile or come to terms with yourself?
Speaker 2: The fact of child sexual abuse is horrifying to me, absolutely,
Speaker 2: and I think we need to take that so seriously
Speaker 2: as a society that needs to get much much better
Speaker 2: with looking gnarly problems in the face and actually tackling them.
Speaker 2: But I also struggle with the persistent focus on privacy
Speaker 2: as the purported barrier to solving these issues, when we
Speaker 2: have most of the Epstein list walking around without consequences,
Speaker 2: when we have so few mechanisms to actually help children
Speaker 2: when they report a powerful figure in their community, when
Speaker 2: we are defunding the actual law enforcement officers who take
Speaker 2: this data, act on this data, move to prosecute the uncles,
Speaker 2: the fathers, the pastors who are perpetrating this abuse.
Speaker 1: Can I give you the example in the UK where
Speaker 1: many people would think, you have to use every tool
Speaker 1: in the block, right, So you have to use the
Speaker 1: leavers you're pointing to, and perhaps you have to use
Speaker 1: the leavers in tech as well. So the UK government
Speaker 1: is moving towards making it compulsory for tech companies to
Speaker 1: ensure that children can't take or share nude images through
Speaker 1: their platforms. Is that workable? Do you think? And if
Speaker 1: the UK compelled that, what would it mean for your
Speaker 1: presence here?
Speaker 2: Well, I'll start by saying there's never been more data
Speaker 2: accessible to law enforcement than there is now that were
Speaker 2: law enforcement well funded, we're social services well funded, they
Speaker 2: could act on and often don't, often delay, or often
Speaker 2: simply don't have the capacity. So when we talk about
Speaker 2: every tool in the toolbox. We need to recognize that
Speaker 2: there are some tools that are not being picked up,
Speaker 2: and there are some tools that seem an obsessive focus
Speaker 2: of politicians who like to abstract these very difficult problems
Speaker 2: into the technical domain and pretend there is one technical
Speaker 2: fix that can apply to solve a problem that needs.
Speaker 1: So this is one of many. What do you think
Speaker 1: of it?
Speaker 2: What do I think of mass scanning of devices that
Speaker 2: would be age gated? You know, we put out a
Speaker 2: statement Cure Starmer announced what seems to be a fairly
Speaker 2: hasty proposal to implement nudity scanning as a mandatory feature
Speaker 2: on all devices that would be sold or used in
Speaker 2: the UK, and that you could only opt out of
Speaker 2: this nudity scanning if you provided some sort of verification
Speaker 2: that you were above a certain age threshold. Correct. There
Speaker 2: are very few technical details on that system, but our
Speaker 2: position and our position on the client side scanning debate
Speaker 2: that circled the Online Safety Bill as well now act,
Speaker 2: is that this constitutes very dangerous mass surveillance. That having
Speaker 2: a scanning system on your device that is going to,
Speaker 2: you know, purportedly detect nudity can easily be weaponized by
Speaker 2: governments for political speech, for other content, and that we
Speaker 2: don't understand the technical mechanism by which this would be implemented,
Speaker 2: because my assumption is there is no specification for this,
Speaker 2: but that you know, we would be looking at a
Speaker 2: system that would likely phone home, so that's sending that
Speaker 2: data to governments, to tech companies and ultimately comprise a
Speaker 2: mass surveillance system of permitted speech that would be implemented
Speaker 2: across everyone's device and pose real threats to signal's ability
Speaker 2: to provide the robust privacy guarantees that military is, governments Ukraine,
Speaker 2: human rights workers, journalists, people around the world rely on
Speaker 2: often for life or death.
Speaker 1: With all of the big brains in tech, you really
Speaker 1: don't think it's possible to refine the product in a
Speaker 1: way that protects children and does the age verification and
Speaker 1: the certain kinds of images without it having these, you know,
Speaker 1: massive repercussions and implications that you're describing.
Speaker 2: Well. Part of being a big brain and tech, I
Speaker 2: think is really understanding the nature and the limits of
Speaker 2: what technology can do. And this isn't a question of
Speaker 2: go think harder nerds, right, there are real limits to
Speaker 2: what tech can and can't do.
Speaker 1: And any texts coming up with new things all the time.
Speaker 2: Their marketing departments are talking about it all the time.
Speaker 2: But you know, if you look at the implementation layer,
Speaker 2: often what you're looking at is sticky tape and twine
Speaker 2: and a handful of legacy libraries that may or may
Speaker 2: not be suitable for purpose. The limits of your the
Speaker 2: limits of the memory that's running on your hardware. You know,
Speaker 2: these are fundamental material limitations and there is no technology
Speaker 2: that has been shown to do this in a way
Speaker 2: that is robust and safe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I also just wonder that whether how sustainable your
Speaker 1: position is. I hear what you're saying, but it's not
Speaker 1: only the UK government that's really concerned on this front.
Speaker 1: The EU also had temporary legislation we just ran out,
Speaker 1: but it was essentially asking tech companies to voluntarily scan
Speaker 1: their platforms.
Speaker 2: And we've taken the same position on.
Speaker 1: That on that this does seem to be the way
Speaker 1: that governments are going and if it is, can you
Speaker 1: imagine signal not being available in the UK or the EU?
Speaker 1: Like you threaten to walk over the Online Safety Bill
Speaker 1: as it was then in the UK.
Speaker 2: Look, you know, we don't really do pr right. We
Speaker 2: have a position, and our position is we would rather
Speaker 2: exit a market than undermine the technical guarantees that people
Speaker 2: trust for their privacy. That doesn't change based on jurisdiction.
Speaker 2: It doesn't change based on your and that's not something
Speaker 2: we take lightly. We're not just like flexing or being recalcitrant.
Speaker 2: That is, recognizing that encryption requires a network effect, that
Speaker 2: a back door in any market compromises a door into
Speaker 2: Signal that would be weaponized by nation state adversaries. Signal
Speaker 2: is the only mass communications platform that provides the level
Speaker 2: of privacy that we provide, and we know that we
Speaker 2: have adversaries that are consistently searching for vulnerabilities in our code.
Speaker 1: Who do you mean?
Speaker 2: Who do we mean? Any government with a capable intelligence
Speaker 2: agency is spending some of that effort looking.
Speaker 1: At including your own government.
Speaker 2: I don't have clearance to know that for sure, but.
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering if you mean Russia, China, or do
Speaker 1: you mean governments in the.
Speaker 2: We know it has been represented to us that you
Speaker 2: know Russia is what we've seen bounties for the delivery
Speaker 2: of vulnerabilities, meaning that you know they'll pay you if
Speaker 2: you can find a vulnerability they could exploit that have
Speaker 2: been offered by the Russian government. We have had people
Speaker 2: with who would know this or represent that to us.
Speaker 2: But if you look at the people who rely on this,
Speaker 2: heads of state, government officials, military strategists, investigative journalists, people
Speaker 2: reporting corruption, I think we need to just recognize that, yes,
Speaker 2: you have people who have a very vested interest in
Speaker 2: infiltrating those networks, in accessing that communication and accessing that data,
Speaker 2: and we'll spend resources doing it. That's the objective function
Speaker 2: of an intelligence agency. And Signal is the only one
Speaker 2: out there doing this, So it would be very It
Speaker 2: would be an absolute breach of our duty of care
Speaker 2: were we to implement a backdoor in Signal, were we
Speaker 2: to undermine that promise. And you know, we're a nonprofit.
Speaker 2: We are not a tech company that is, you know,
Speaker 2: juicing numbers to IPO and exit.
Speaker 1: Does we take this very SONI That's one of the
Speaker 1: intriguing things about Signal, And I wondered how hard it
Speaker 1: makes it because you have some big donors, but you
Speaker 1: also have users who donate to you. So today, what
Speaker 1: are your annual running costs? What are the costs you
Speaker 1: have to cover. It's about fifty million dollars a year.
Speaker 1: Five zero And do you fall short in donations we're sustaining. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's about seventy percent large donors, thirty percent people who
Speaker 1: use the app and donate, you know, five dollars a month,
Speaker 1: twenty dollars a month.
Speaker 2: We love them. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Does it feel like a struggle?
Speaker 2: I would, It's something I think about a lot. One
Speaker 2: of the real issues we're working with is that the
Speaker 2: economic engine of the tech industry as it's shaped now
Speaker 2: is surveillance. It's the collection and monetization of data that's
Speaker 2: not alarmist, that is technically true, and so existing within
Speaker 2: a framework where all of the pressures for revenue, for growth,
Speaker 2: for profit for IPO are pointing in the direction of
Speaker 2: collect and monetize data means that we have to choose
Speaker 2: a different model, one where we don't have a VC
Speaker 2: saying hey, you're not going to meet your quarterly goals,
Speaker 2: you're not going to get your Series B if you
Speaker 2: don't figure out how to monetize, where we don't have
Speaker 2: a board and shareholders saying figure out how to carve
Speaker 2: out some data collection so you could build an AI
Speaker 2: model so you can continue to meet and exceed market consensus.
Speaker 1: Well, that made me wonder about the llms and chat,
Speaker 1: GPT and claud, Like, what would you like us to
Speaker 1: be aware of in privacy terms when we use those,
Speaker 1: when we ask questions, when we put prompts into the individ.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean flatly like, these are not your friends,
Speaker 2: these are not conscious beings, these are not sentient interlock cuters.
Speaker 2: They're very useful, sure mean, things are very.
Speaker 1: Chats And you can say you don't want your chance
Speaker 1: to be shared.
Speaker 2: You can say all sorts of things, but ultimately the
Speaker 2: power to determine whether that happens or not is in
Speaker 2: the hands of the entity that is running that service.
Speaker 2: And those can be stored, those can be logged, those
Speaker 2: can be mined for more data. Those can be tweaked
Speaker 2: slightly to calibrate the responses to your purported preference on
Speaker 2: behalf of say advertisers. You know, maybe there's an airline
Speaker 2: that has paid to advertise and instead of showing ads.
Speaker 2: Perhaps and I'm working with a hypothetical here. We don't
Speaker 2: have evidence of this, but this is very much in
Speaker 2: the realm of the possible. You say, hey, chat GPT,
Speaker 2: find me a very cheap flight, and instead of finding
Speaker 2: you the cheapest flight, it finds you one with their
Speaker 2: preferred advertising partner that is not cheaper. Do you use them?
Speaker 2: I mean, I asked them to form out a document
Speaker 2: here and there, but no, I have no relationship with them.
Speaker 2: I don't ask them questions. You know, I'm very serious
Speaker 2: about my thinking and my writing, and I don't want
Speaker 2: the process of working through an idea, the struggle of
Speaker 2: not knowing and then figuring it out, to be foreclosed
Speaker 2: or eclipsed by the response of a system that's kind
Speaker 2: of averaging what's already out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that's a different argument. That's also about
Speaker 1: safeguarding your headspace or your thinking time. Beyond privacy, the
Speaker 1: next generation, or the next layer of all these models
Speaker 1: is the more autonomous personal assistant type thing. You know,
Speaker 1: Microsoft Copilot most of Usilmano was on this program and
Speaker 1: he said to me, you know, by next Christmas, you
Speaker 1: can be buying your Christmas presents through Microsoft Copilot, working
Speaker 1: out what you need to buy for whom. What do
Speaker 1: you think of that kind of autonomous agent being in
Speaker 1: people's lives? What would it mean in privacy terms?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. And let's let's
Speaker 2: take myself as little vision of you know, AI Christmas.
Speaker 2: Who could I can't wait? Yeah, everyone's getting a give
Speaker 2: certificate to Microsoft Copilot. But what would what would what
Speaker 2: would that mean? Right? So we have a Windows laptop.
Speaker 2: It's running co Pilot, and I say, hey, Copilot, I
Speaker 2: don't want to live my life. I would like you
Speaker 2: to live it for me. And I don't really want
Speaker 2: to think about the warm feelings I have for those
Speaker 2: that I'm buying gifts for, or think about what they
Speaker 2: might actually love or you know, engage in that like
Speaker 2: generous interpersonal communal feeling that maybe should be at the
Speaker 2: heart of Christmas. Who knows, But I don't have the
Speaker 2: time for that. I'm going to play pickleball or whatever
Speaker 2: the thing I am doing, and I would like you
Speaker 2: to do that for me. And I would like you
Speaker 2: to figure out what gifts to buy. I would like
Speaker 2: you to consult with my siblings group chat and see,
Speaker 2: you know what our family might like. I would like
Speaker 2: you to buy those gifts, and I would like you
Speaker 2: to figure out how to get them to the right place. Well, okay,
Speaker 2: that would need access to my credit card. That would
Speaker 2: need access to my browser to pretend it is me,
Speaker 2: to drive through that browsing history to find those things.
Speaker 2: If it's access to my siblings group chat, that would
Speaker 2: need access to my signal, that would need the ability
Speaker 2: to message my siblings on my behalf, and then it
Speaker 2: would need my home address. Say, to ship those gifts,
Speaker 2: it would need maybe my calendar to make sure they
Speaker 2: get there on time, et cetera, et cetera. So what
Speaker 2: you've just described is a system with very very pervasive
Speaker 2: access across multiple apps, applications, and services, and importantly, in
Speaker 2: the context of signal, it would constitute a kind of
Speaker 2: a backdoor in the signal. It would be able to
Speaker 2: access signal pull data out of protection.
Speaker 1: Isn't just privacy and access to our data. It's actually
Speaker 1: that you think, once something like that ends up on
Speaker 1: a phone because we've given it permission to, it could
Speaker 1: actually be a threat to signals, ethos and promise.
Speaker 2: We have described it metaphorically as breaking the blood brain
Speaker 2: barrier between the operating system and the application layer, so.
Speaker 1: You can make signals secure enough to protect against that.
Speaker 2: Well, what we are seeing in the case of these
Speaker 2: agents or promises like this, right the access of data
Speaker 2: at the application layer, pulling that data into a context window.
Speaker 2: But it's sort of a big data slurry that the
Speaker 2: agent sort of acts on and remembers, and then implementations
Speaker 2: architectures for this agent that are very unsafe from a
Speaker 2: cybersecurity perspective.
Speaker 1: Because the agent is essentially becoming the person or the
Speaker 1: agent has been given the license to be. You have
Speaker 1: to be me, well not you, because I'm sure you
Speaker 1: would never go down this route, but.
Speaker 2: I try to ask you. So that is my struggle.
Speaker 2: But you've given it, in technical terms like route access
Speaker 2: to your life. You've given it the keys to the kingdom,
Speaker 2: because to act on your behalf, it needs to be
Speaker 2: able to do everything you would do.
Speaker 1: Do you worry then about this as an existential threat
Speaker 1: to signal? It's clearly not that easy to run the foundation.
Speaker 1: I do worry because it seems quite likely that it
Speaker 1: will come to pass, just if you look at how
Speaker 1: much bigger these companies are getting by the day, and
Speaker 1: they're going to need to make more promises about what
Speaker 1: they can offer. I use the example of co Pilot,
Speaker 1: but there are others.
Speaker 2: Clearly, any one of the operating system vendors that decides
Speaker 2: to implement an agent with these capacities is ultimately hog
Speaker 2: blowing out the ability for Signal and others to guarantee
Speaker 2: privacy or data protection at the application layer. And this
Speaker 2: is a quiet but profound shift that we are witnessing.
Speaker 1: Can you fight it?
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't believe in inevitability, and I am willing
Speaker 2: to fight on my principles. I don't know if I
Speaker 2: can win it, but I will do everything I can
Speaker 2: because I think this is fundamental. I am concerned that
Speaker 2: we are seeing extremely hasty decisions made by very powerful actors.
Speaker 2: You know, we have three companies in the world with
Speaker 2: control over our core operating systems. That's Google with Android,
Speaker 2: Microsoft with Windows, and Apple with iOS mac os. We
Speaker 2: all are relying on one or another of those, and
Speaker 2: they can make decisions by FIAT that fundamentally harm our
Speaker 2: collective cybersecurity, that take away any choice we might have
Speaker 2: for privacy, and that completely hamstring developers at the application
Speaker 2: layer who've spent so much labor, so much money, so
Speaker 2: much intention on building different services that protect or do x,
Speaker 2: y and z. So we are seeing, ironically, almost in
Speaker 2: the name of AI agents, a move of agency away
Speaker 2: from the application layer, away from the user, away from
Speaker 2: the consumer who uses these devices, back into these centralized companies.
Speaker 1: Give us some advice, then, because I think I could
Speaker 1: take away okay, wherever you have the option to take
Speaker 1: the box, saying to limit the use of your day
Speaker 1: to do it. But I think you're also telling me
Speaker 1: that you don't really trust in what you get back
Speaker 1: for saying don't use my data, I don't want it shared.
Speaker 2: Or you know. Look, I think we have evidence that
Speaker 2: you know, simply trusting is and not a sound conclusion.
Speaker 2: I do come from maybe an old school where I
Speaker 2: think you should verify then trust. What is the advice?
Speaker 2: I think healthy skepticism and a recognition that this technology
Speaker 2: is not magic. It can be extremely useful. It can
Speaker 2: have profound applications, particularly where finding patterns and large amounts
Speaker 2: of data is useful for XYZ. But it runs on hardware.
Speaker 2: It runs on software. When we talk about AI, we're
Speaker 2: not talking about a magical sky god that can suddenly
Speaker 2: solve all our problems, answer all our questions. We are
Speaker 2: talking about a statistical model that is then embedded in
Speaker 2: a hardware software system, using software libraries, implementing choices on
Speaker 2: the user interface level that are made by people that
Speaker 2: are susceptible to vulnerable.
Speaker 1: Tell me what you do in your own life, because
Speaker 1: signal for messaging? What else? What is common in the
Speaker 1: rest of our lives that you never use and you
Speaker 1: think we should. Like when you go for a run,
Speaker 1: do you put it on st Rava? Do you you
Speaker 1: would not do that?
Speaker 2: No? I don't. I mean, I'm not a I'm not
Speaker 2: like the full crumb of leverage for me is not
Speaker 2: individual consumer choice. And I am not trying to be
Speaker 2: holier than thou purest right. You know, I have a
Speaker 2: tracking app I used for different health metrics. It's been
Speaker 2: helpful for me. I travel a lot, and it's been
Speaker 2: helpful for me seeing that.
Speaker 1: That's health data.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is health data used. Yeah, and I benefit
Speaker 2: from that. I think the lever we need to be
Speaker 2: pushing on is much more systemic change. I am not
Speaker 2: going to opt out of life. I am not going
Speaker 2: to go live in a cabin in the woods and
Speaker 2: like pay someone to print out my emails at the
Speaker 2: post office in town or whatever we're talking about, you know,
Speaker 2: so that I can feel private, right, Like, if we
Speaker 2: look even at signals, privacy promises. We're not talking about
Speaker 2: sort of isolation from our social, economic, political lives, living
Speaker 2: in a vacuum of like holier than now CyberSecure, purity, purity.
Speaker 2: We're talking about the ability to talk to other people,
Speaker 2: to share with them, right, and so, Yeah, I have
Speaker 2: an Instagram. I post mainly work events or whatever on that, right,
Speaker 2: I use social media. I have the nts app. It's
Speaker 2: a really good web radio that has great mixes. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: I listen to that. Maybe they collect data, you know,
Speaker 2: I push reject all, but I don't always trust that
Speaker 2: that's actually rejecting cookies. I am a person living in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six and I want to participate in the world.
Speaker 2: What I don't believe is that participation should be on
Speaker 2: the terms of a handful of tech companies located in
Speaker 2: the US whose choices are made based on the desire
Speaker 2: to maximize revenue.
Speaker 1: That you, too, are American tech.
Speaker 2: I the irony abounds. Look at this a complex individual.
Speaker 2: I am, and I worked in tech for twenty years.
Speaker 2: I'm of the tech industry. So those two things are true.
Speaker 1: But I think you're saying choice, make better choices, or
Speaker 1: just think more carefully about your choices like, even if
Speaker 1: you get that much from people, will you consider it
Speaker 1: valuable or even a victory?
Speaker 2: I would say those things, and that you be skeptical
Speaker 2: of these claims. You're not stupid. You know the choice
Speaker 2: is offered, yes, no or maybe maybe? Aren't the choices
Speaker 2: you want as a dream a little bigger? What do
Speaker 2: you want from these companies? What world do you want
Speaker 2: to live in? What world would be the thing you
Speaker 2: want to help build? And then how do you think
Speaker 2: about demanding from the people who have commandeered, who have created,
Speaker 2: who now hold so much power over our social and
Speaker 2: political and economic institutions via the tech infrastructures, the information ecosystem,
Speaker 2: on the tech platforms, the AI decision making that is
Speaker 2: inoculating so many functions in our lives. What do we
Speaker 2: need from them to help create that world? Not simply
Speaker 2: if I'm given the choice yes or no, which do
Speaker 2: I choose? And that's the limit of my ability to
Speaker 2: enact any change in my life? But do we want
Speaker 2: tech in our education system? And how? Yes? We do? Okay, well,
Speaker 2: then what does it look like? And how do we
Speaker 2: work to guarantee that we're actually using it to shape
Speaker 2: that better world? And not simply being shaped by decisions
Speaker 2: made on a whiteboard in Mountain View by a handful
Speaker 2: of product managers who really have to ship AI this
Speaker 2: quarter or they're not going to get promoted.
Speaker 1: Who you probably know because you once used to work
Speaker 1: with them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're all named Mike. Even now is like that,
Speaker 2: even now, even now I've heard, I've.
Speaker 1: Heard you never missed that world. I mean it's a
Speaker 1: very big Bucks world for other things.
Speaker 2: Am I said, I'm not like rich rich? Yeah, no, no,
Speaker 2: like I'm I'm hood rich. I'm happy being hood rich.
Speaker 2: I don't need to be. It means rich in the
Speaker 2: context of the neighborhood of you, not rich in the
Speaker 2: context of complaining about the Champagne on your private flight.
Speaker 1: You'll and your herds are both New York and Paris.
Speaker 2: So yeah, you'll get the like. Don't cry it from me,
Speaker 2: Meredith Whitika, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: That was great, Thank you, and that is where we
Speaker 1: said goodbye. Unknown to me. Later that day, Meredith was
Speaker 1: visiting Downing Street to talk to Kirs Starmer's team about
Speaker 1: signals concern at their plans. You can see a photograph
Speaker 1: of her in front of the famous black door and
Speaker 1: get all the wider context if you read the written
Speaker 1: version of this at Bloomberg dot com forward slash Michelle
Speaker 1: a few other notes. We asked Meta to comment on
Speaker 1: her characterization of its business model and approach to privacy.
Speaker 1: A spokesperson for WhatsApp responded by saying this, we also
Speaker 1: look at privacy beyond encrypting messages. We don't keep logs
Speaker 1: of who everyone is messaging or calling. We do not
Speaker 1: track the messages people are sending one another for ads,
Speaker 1: we do not sell user data. We approached Google too
Speaker 1: on Meredith's assessment of their business model, but we've had
Speaker 1: no response, and that Ai Christmas thought. The conversation with
Speaker 1: Mustapha Suliman of Microsoft is in the feed. Just scroll
Speaker 1: back to last December to find it. Finally, the team.
Speaker 1: The producers are Jessica Beck and Chris Martlou. The video
Speaker 1: producer is Andy Haywood. Social media's by Alex Morgan, audio
Speaker 1: mixing by Richard Ward, our music is by Bart Warshaw,
Speaker 1: and the executive producer is Louisa Lewis. At Bloomberg Weekend
Speaker 1: thanks to Brendan Francis Newnham and our executive editor Catherine
Speaker 1: Bell and until next time, Goodbye,