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The article mentions WhatsApp multiple times as a service that successfully made the transition to end-to-end encryption, but it always seemed to me that this claim is rather meaningless when we don't have the possibility of auditing their source code.
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How can you personally verify that any 3rd party service is doing what it claims? Unless you're a security expert with plenty of time to comb through someone else's code, you're still relying on others to be truthful and competent. Even then you're relying on layers upon layers of software and hardware. Far too much for an individual to verify.
You rely on a net of diverse independent reviewers instead of a single entity with a particular interest. A peer reviewed distributed trust net is much more trustworthy.
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We can't do anything about the phone number requirement?
Actually magic link sent to your email would be MUCH better. Also central authority but Gmail >>> any telecom
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https://source.android.com/ The source code for Android is open under the Apache 2.0 license. Of course, iOS and Windows are closed source.
You're ignoring that most drivers for android phones are proprietary, the baseband is entirely proprietary (required by law), the Google services are proprietary (which many apps use) and most apps are proprietary (including Google's replacements for the AOSP apps). If you want a completely free software smartphone experience, it is simply not possible at the moment. Even Replicant[1] still hasn't cracked the baseban…
If you want a completely 'free' (as in GPL) cell phone experience, you can setup a OpenBTS transmitter and transmit at the 900mhz range which is commons property. To stay legal in the US, your antenna has to put out less than a watt, but the setup allows you to even use off-the-shelf phones and trunk into normal phone lines via standard POTS software. Your device would have to be something a-la http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~mellis/cellphone/ (just a janky setup, but just a proof-of-concept -- you can patch together components from DigiKey pretty easily these days; if you want free-silicon, I think the closest you're going to get is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OsmocomBB or maybe some soft cores, but if you're actually going to take that soft core to tape-out, you're probably going to be running 6 figures just for masks...)
The article mentions WhatsApp multiple times as a service that successfully made the transition to end-to-end encryption, but it always seemed to me that this claim is rather meaningless when we don't have the possibility of auditing their source code.
The article mentions WhatsApp multiple times as a service that successfully made the transition to end-to-end encryption, but it always seemed to me that this claim is rather meaningless when we don't have the possibility of auditing their source code.
Open source is required not just for apps, but also for:
- operating systems
- drivers
- firmware
Then we can start to talk about privacy.
It's possible defeating encryption is the responsibility of another top secret department whose work remains unleaked.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually magic link sent to your email would be MUCH better. Also central authority but Gmail >>> any telecom
It also doesn't have to be a central authority, since "anyone" (meaning: anyone who can afford to operate a mailserver, which is actually a surprisingly-high number) can be such an authority for one's own mail.
The article mentions WhatsApp multiple times as a service that successfully made the transition to end-to-end encryption, but it always seemed to me that this claim is rather meaningless when we don't have the possibility of auditing their source code.
if the cia has to bypass it by hacking users phones it seems to apply the encryption itself is solid.