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There is no WhatsApp 'backdoor'

whispersystems.org

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Re: There is no WhatsApp 'backdoor'

#251

Post by estel »

acqq wrote: post #175
tucif wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could . I guess the point here is: Can there be a backdoor in whatsapp? Of course! Is there a backdoor on Whatsapp as described on the guardian article? No. Can the UX be improved to alert the smaller percentage of users that rely heavily on the encryption features when their communication is not being actively protected without disturbing the UX of the rest of the users? Probably yes,

> Can the UX be improved to alert the smaller percentage of users that rely heavily ... Probably yes Hell yes! Imagine jusr changing background color and the banner "somebody spies on you." Now it's something like some checkmark somewhere looks a bit different or whatever.. I'm still not sure what when...

But keys changes are pretty frequent and normal things that happen between clients - this would be an awful and inappropriate warning almost every time it was shown.

Re: There is no WhatsApp 'backdoor'

#252

Post by nl »

joeblau wrote: post #23

There seems to be a pretty clear war going on between engineers and journalists lately. - Chris Latter [1] vs Business Insider [2] - Elon Musk vs (Bunch of outlets) - Moxie vs The Guardian I feel like journalists want to write a compelling story and engineers are on the other side like "No, those aren't facts!" I don't follow a lot of media outlets but it seems like journalists either lack the skills or don't care ab…

Umm, perhaps you haven't read the comments here?

The Guardian story was good. Perhaps it is slightly overblown, but it is arguable both ways, and it certainly highlighted a real issue.

Musk is way over defensive and never admits a problem of any kind, and in most of the stories about him there is a problem of some kind.

I haven't followed the Latter story at all.

Re: There is no WhatsApp 'backdoor'

#253

Post by praneshp »

na85 wrote: post #122
imranq wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about...Walmart, Glencore, Phillip Morris, Blackwater, Palantir...

Does Walmart actively deceive me? Not that I'm aware, but I don't shop there. Never heard of Glencore or Phillip Morris. As for Blackwater and Palantir, my impression from the media is they do exactly what they say. It's not like Palantir lies about harvesting data to give to government. I trust that they actually do do that. None of those companies have posted fake news and altered the news algo with the express int…

> "Never heard of Glencore or Phillip Morris."

The amount of passion in your comment and this gap in knowledge don't go well with each other. I encourage you to at least read about Philip Morris (or watch John Oliver's episode about them at least).

Re: There is no WhatsApp 'backdoor'

#255

Post by na85 »

praneshp wrote: post #253
na85 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Walmart actively deceive me? Not that I'm aware, but I don't shop there. Never heard of Glencore or Phillip Morris. As for Blackwater and Palantir, my impression from the media is they do exactly what they say. It's not like Palantir lies about harvesting data to give to government. I trust that they actually do do that. None of those companies have posted fake news and altered the news algo with the express int…

> "Never heard of Glencore or Phillip Morris." The amount of passion in your comment and this gap in knowledge don't go well with each other. I encourage you to at least read about Philip Morris (or watch John Oliver's episode about them at least).

I'm not from the US, so there's that.

Re: There is no WhatsApp 'backdoor'

#256

Post by Buge »

moxie wrote: post #207
rndgermandude wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This allows WhatsApp to MITM. Whatapps can rekey both Alice and Bob, decrypt both their messages from that point onwards (incl unsent messages) and forward them re-encrypted with their real keys. The only notification might be that rekeying warning, if the users have turned it on. In this scenario even the double-checkmarks are present. This is contrary to WhatsApp's claim that even they cannot snoop. PS: I just chec…

> This allows WhatsApp to MITM. Whatapps can rekey both Alice and Bob, decrypt both their messages from that point onwards (incl unsent messages) and forward them re-encrypted with their real keys. The only notification might be that rekeying warning, if the users have turned it on. In this scenario even the double-checkmarks are present. This is contrary to WhatsApp's claim that even they cannot snoop. You've just d…

>You've just described a "man in the middle" attack. It is endemic to any public key cryptosystem, including Signal and PGP, not just WhatsApp. The notification that you see in WhatsApp, Signal, SSH, PGP, or whatever is the defense.

Wouldn't Coniks provide a more robust defense?

Re: There is no WhatsApp 'backdoor'

#257

Post by [deleted] »

moxie wrote: post #207
rndgermandude wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This allows WhatsApp to MITM. Whatapps can rekey both Alice and Bob, decrypt both their messages from that point onwards (incl unsent messages) and forward them re-encrypted with their real keys. The only notification might be that rekeying warning, if the users have turned it on. In this scenario even the double-checkmarks are present. This is contrary to WhatsApp's claim that even they cannot snoop. PS: I just chec…

> This allows WhatsApp to MITM. Whatapps can rekey both Alice and Bob, decrypt both their messages from that point onwards (incl unsent messages) and forward them re-encrypted with their real keys. The only notification might be that rekeying warning, if the users have turned it on. In this scenario even the double-checkmarks are present. This is contrary to WhatsApp's claim that even they cannot snoop. You've just d…

[deleted]

Re: There is no WhatsApp 'backdoor'

#258

Post by boomboomsubban »

moxie wrote: post #207
rndgermandude wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This allows WhatsApp to MITM. Whatapps can rekey both Alice and Bob, decrypt both their messages from that point onwards (incl unsent messages) and forward them re-encrypted with their real keys. The only notification might be that rekeying warning, if the users have turned it on. In this scenario even the double-checkmarks are present. This is contrary to WhatsApp's claim that even they cannot snoop. PS: I just chec…

> This allows WhatsApp to MITM. Whatapps can rekey both Alice and Bob, decrypt both their messages from that point onwards (incl unsent messages) and forward them re-encrypted with their real keys. The only notification might be that rekeying warning, if the users have turned it on. In this scenario even the double-checkmarks are present. This is contrary to WhatsApp's claim that even they cannot snoop. You've just d…

>I think we should all remain open to ideas about how we can improve this UX within the limits a mass market product has to operate within, but that's very different from labeling this a "backdoor."

Then release your product in a manner that let's people improve the UX and correctly label what is and isn't a backdoor.

Re: There is no WhatsApp 'backdoor'

#259

Post by cookiecaper »

moxie wrote: post #237
rndgermandude wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The notification that you see in WhatsApp, Signal, SSH, PGP, or whatever is the defense. That defense, which happens to be the only defense, is turned off by default in WhatsApp. You seem to argue they do so because it's bad UX to present such notification by default. That's - in my humble opinion - like suggesting browsers should turn off TLS chain errors by default because it's bad UX and just proceed with the co…

> That defense, which happens to be the only defense, is turned off by default in WhatsApp. > You seem to argue they do so because it's bad UX to present such notification by default. That's - in my humble opinion - like suggesting browsers should turn off TLS chain errors by default because it's bad UX and just proceed with the connection as if nothing happened... One thing we've learned over the years is that secur…

>TLS certificate errors are not something that should happen under normal circumstances. When a TLS certificate fails to validate, something is really wrong. As we've gotten better about ensuring those conditions, browsers have made it harder and harder to get past the warnings, because they're not warnings anymore -- they're error conditions.

Not paying Verisign your rent? That's an "error condition".

(Here of course referring to the choice of browser vendors to block access to web sites that offer secure end-to-end crypto via TLS, but merely haven't paid a browser-trusted CA to issue a new cert with a future expiration date.)

Re: There is no WhatsApp 'backdoor'

#260

Post by praneshp »

na85 wrote: post #255
praneshp wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Never heard of Glencore or Phillip Morris." The amount of passion in your comment and this gap in knowledge don't go well with each other. I encourage you to at least read about Philip Morris (or watch John Oliver's episode about them at least).

I'm not from the US, so there's that.

Cool, no worries. Philip Morris operates worldwide though, and I'll have to hear some awesome arguments to be convinced that facebook is more evil/less trustable than them.
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