Meredith Whittaker
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Machine Gods · Inside Anthropic’s IPO + How AI agents spy on your messages
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Why Do Governments Still Want Encryption Backdoors?
Meredith Whittaker says governments have tried to get through encryption since the crypto wars of the 1990s. She calls the pattern for me, but not for thee: governments that depend on encryption for themselves still want a way into everyone else's messages.
The UK is sending threatening signals, and nothing that large is underway in the United States right now. India's SIM binding rules could force Signal to weaken protections around identity. In Europe, a proposal called chat control keeps coming back. It would make services scan messages for illegal content in the name of child protection. A Canadian law could let the government order a company to strip encryption, with a gag so outsiders
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Why Does Signal Want an Opt-out From Phone AI?
Meredith Whittaker says Signal blocked screenshots on desktop a little over a year ago, after Microsoft Recall started watching what people did on their computers. Signal is preparing the same kind of block for an AI Siri in iOS 27 and for Gemini on Android. Other phone makers ship their own agents, and an app like Muse can still ask for access from the side.
Signal is asking Microsoft, Apple, and Google for a switch an app developer can use to opt out of AI access to its data. She says the stakes are life or death for investigative reporters, people in Ukraine, and anyone else who uses Signal because no other mass messenger offers the same privacy. Apple leads its AI pitch with privacy and
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How Can an AI Agent Read Signal Messages?
Meredith Whittaker says an AI agent on a phone or computer can erase the privacy Signal is able to offer. Encryption still hides a message on the way. It does not help if the other person's agent is allowed to read the screen, copy what is on the device, or pull the text out of Signal to write a summary.
She describes the steps as ordinary plumbing: a screenshot, storage, character recognition, then a copy sent to a remote server for inference. That can expose the person who sent the message, not only the person who turned the agent on. A reporter was warned not to leave Signal open on a desktop that also runs an agent. Assistants such as Muse, advertised around San Francisco, can build dos