Another article, much better and presents in more detail that Olvid was audited on an older version and chosen because it was French and they applied for it (French) https://www.numerama.com/tech/1575168-pourquoi-les-ministres-vont-devoir-renoncer-a-whatsapp-signal-et-telegram.html
Google translate link original post : https://www-lepoint-fr.translate.goog/high-tech-internet/les-ministres-francais-invites-a-desinstaller-whatsapp-signal-et-telegram-29-11-2023-2545099_47.php?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=wapp
The translation has some mistakes but good enough to understand the context.
Here is a short summary :
Olvid passed a 35d intrusion test by Anssi (French cybersecurity state organisation) experts or designated experts, with code examination without finding any security breach. Which is not the case of all other 3 messaging apps (either because they didn’t do any test, or because they didn’t pass).
This makes WhatsApp, signal and telegram unreliable for state security.
And so government members and ministerial offices will have to use Olvid or Tchap (French state in house messaging app).
More detail in the article.
Sure it does, but that doesn’t make it bad.
Open source code is not the only solution to secure communication.
You can be extremely secure on closed source tools as well.
If they found specific issues with Signal aside from not being allowed to freely inspect their code base, I suspect we would be hearing about it. Instead I don’t see specific security failings just hat it didn’t make the measure for their security software audit.
As an example of something that is closed source and trusted:
The software used to load data and debug the F-35 fighter jet.
Pretty big problem for 16 countries if that isn’t secure… closed source. So much s you can’t even run tests against the device for loading data to the jet live. It’s a problem to sort out, but it’s an example of where highly important communication protocols are not open source and trusted by the governments of many countries.
If their particular standard here was open source, ok, but they didn’t do anything to assure the version they inspected would be the only version used. In fact every release from that basement pair of programmers could inadvertently have a flaw in it, which this committee would not be reviewing in the code base for its members of parliament.
Lol at military stuff being secure. Most often it’s not, it’s just hidden. There was an Ars Technica article about the “secure” devices used at military bases being full of holes for example: https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/08/next-gen-osdp-was-supposed-to-make-it-harder-to-break-in-to-secure-facilities-it-failed/
When code is hidden all you know for sure is that you don’t know anything about it. You certainly can’t say it’s secure.
If a piece of code or a system is really secure then it does not care if the code is open because the security lays in the quality of its algorithms and the strength of the keys.