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With Threats to Encryption Looming, Signal’s Meredith Whittaker Says ‘We’re Not Changing’


At WIRED’s The Big Interview event, the president of the Signal Foundation talked about secure communications as critical infrastructure and the need for a new funding paradigm for tech.

Its president, Meredith Whittaker, sees a massive shift underway and an “invitation for action” as the monoliths of big tech lose popularity and the old economics of Silicon Valley become brittle. At WIRED’s The Big Interview event in San Francisco on Tuesday, Whittaker talked about Signal’s increasing role as critical infrastructure for communication around the world, and the contributions it can make in developing a new model for funding vital tech projects. It costs around$50 million per year to run Signal and Whittaker noted at the event that there are no easy answers to finding that type of funding—or more—for projects that need consistent, independent, and secure backing without being subject to the forces of data monetization and surveillance capitalism.

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