{"id":54886,"date":"2025-10-27T18:17:54","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T17:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aboutsignal.com\/?p=54886"},"modified":"2025-10-29T15:01:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T14:01:20","slug":"signals-praesident-ueber-die-nutzung-von-aws-das-wahre-problem-ist-das-infrastruktur-monopol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aboutsignal.com\/de\/news\/signals-president-on-using-aws-the-real-problem-is-infrastructure-monopoly\/","title":{"rendered":"Signals Pr\u00e4sidentin \u00fcber die Nutzung von AWS: Das eigentliche Problem ist das Infrastruktur-Monopol"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When AWS suffered a major outage, many were surprised to learn that Signal relies on Amazon\u2019s cloud. Signal\u2019s president Meredith Whittaker explains why that surprise reveals a deeper misunderstanding of how today\u2019s internet actually works.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A debate that shows how little we understand internet infrastructure<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When AWS suffered widespread outages last week<\/a>, some Signal users were surprised to learn that the privacy-focused messaging app partially relies on Amazon\u2019s cloud infrastructure. Meredith Whittaker, president of Signal, took to social media to offer clarification and provide broader context to the ongoing debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a thread, Whittaker explained that despite the use of AWS, user privacy is still preserved. \u201cWe use encryption to make sure no one but you \u2014 not AWS, not Signal, not anyone \u2014 can access your communications\u201d, she wrote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for Whittaker, the surprise itself was troubling: it revealed just how little awareness there is about the concentration of power among the world\u2019s major cloud providers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s concerning,\u201d she noted, \u201cbecause it indicates that the extent of the concentration of power in the hands of a few hyperscalers is way less widely understood than I\u2019d assumed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not about Signal\u2019s choice \u2014 It\u2019s about the lack of alternatives<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Whittaker urged critics to look beyond Signal\u2019s specific setup and instead question why nearly every global, real-time communications platform \u2014 from Signal to X, from Palantir to Mastodon \u2014 relies in some capacity on AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Running a platform like Signal, she explained, isn\u2019t as simple as \u201crenting a server.\u201d It demands a \u201cpre-built, planet-spanning network of compute, storage, and edge presence\u201d that ensures low latency and high availability for millions of concurrent users \u2014 whether they\u2019re in Cairo or Cape Town, Bangkok or Berlin. This kind of infrastructure requires billions of dollars in investment and continuous maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if Signal somehow had those billions, it would still face another barrier: expertise. The operational knowledge, tooling, and reliability practices that underpin modern internet infrastructure were developed within the hyperscalers themselves. \u201cThe very language of modern SRE [Site Reliability Engineering] came out of these companies,\u201d Whittaker wrote, \u201cand is now synonymous with \u2018the cloud.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dependency is not just in the cloud<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Signal\u2019s reliance on AWS, Whittaker pointed out, is only one layer of a broader dependency stack that touches nearly every device and operating system. The app runs on iOS (Apple) and Android (Google) for mobile users, and on Windows (Microsoft) for desktops. Each of these ecosystems represents another form of concentrated power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe problem is the concentration of power in the infrastructure space that means there isn\u2019t really another choice: the entire stack, practically speaking, is owned by 3\u20134 players.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Learning moment for everyone<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Despite those constraints, Whittaker emphasised that Signal\u2019s architecture still preserves its integrity and privacy guarantees. End-to-end encryption ensures that, even when data moves across AWS infrastructure, no one but the sender and recipient can read it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her closing message: that the AWS outage and following discussion could be a \u201clearning moment\u201d \u2014 one that highlights the fragility of our digital ecosystem and the dangers of centralising the world\u2019s \u201cnervous system\u201d in a handful of corporate hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

????THREAD: It\u2019s surprising to me that so many people were surprised to learn that Signal runs partly on AWS (something we can do because we use encryption to make sure no one but you\u2013not AWS, not Signal, not anyone\u2013can access your comms). \n\nIt\u2019s also concerning. 1\/

[image or embed]<\/a><\/p>— Meredith Whittaker (@meredithmeredith.bsky.social<\/a>) 27 oktober 2025 om 11:38<\/a><\/blockquote>