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U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#11

Post by tomatotomato37 »

mjevans wrote: post #4

I think it has become abundantly clear that a fully peer to peer, encryption required (non-optional), no single central server infrastructure solution is the answer. No points to tap. No point in tapping the data. If they want to capture conversations it's time to go back to the proper old ways of actually spying on high-value targets.

This is a case of the government trying to force Facebook to essentially strip out their technology; saying technology is the solution here is kinda ignorant of the actual issue

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#12

Post by wpdev_63 »

mjevans wrote: post #4

I think it has become abundantly clear that a fully peer to peer, encryption required (non-optional), no single central server infrastructure solution is the answer. No points to tap. No point in tapping the data. If they want to capture conversations it's time to go back to the proper old ways of actually spying on high-value targets.

Keep in mind they do have the infrastructure in place(carriers and oems) to directly tap on cellphones. While a federated encrypted chat services are a step in the right direction, we won't get truly 'free' communication device until an open source hardware to software solution exists.

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#13

Post by seorphates »

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #11
mjevans wrote: post #4

I think it has become abundantly clear that a fully peer to peer, encryption required (non-optional), no single central server infrastructure solution is the answer. No points to tap. No point in tapping the data. If they want to capture conversations it's time to go back to the proper old ways of actually spying on high-value targets.

This is a case of the government trying to force Facebook to essentially strip out their technology; saying technology is the solution here is kinda ignorant of the actual issue

Is it? You kind of lost me. Isn't the actual issue math?

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#14

Post by bodas »

CGamesPlay wrote: post #7

At what point does the technical community stop trying to technically interfere with the efforts of law enforcement, and start trying to change the laws that make law enforcement behave this way?

So we should give up trying to help people in oppressive countries and just shop them to the authorities?

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#15

Post by tomatotomato37 »

seorphates wrote: post #13
tomatotomato37 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a case of the government trying to force Facebook to essentially strip out their technology; saying technology is the solution here is kinda ignorant of the actual issue

Is it? You kind of lost me. Isn't the actual issue math?

The issue is the government wanting to strip the encryption going forward. In other words, even the most decentralized & encrypted app can still have NSA_RemoteConn.Log(dat) written into it's source code

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#16

Post by madeofpalk »

seorphates wrote: post #13
tomatotomato37 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a case of the government trying to force Facebook to essentially strip out their technology; saying technology is the solution here is kinda ignorant of the actual issue

Is it? You kind of lost me. Isn't the actual issue math?

The issue is laws.

A country that's going to mandate backdoors/access to such communications, are going to outlaw communication methods they can't backdoor.

Say Apple makes a federated end-to-end encrypted messenger app, the government will still go to Apple and say "let us read all the messages, otherwise you can't sell your devices". THAT is the problem, and it can't be solved by more technology and shouting "BLOCKCHAIN!"

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#17

Post by seorphates »

craftyguy wrote: post #6
_bxg1 wrote: post #2

"it could make similar arguments to force companies to rewrite other popular encrypted services such as Signal and Facebook’s billion-user WhatsApp" Umm... Signal is open-source, so unless they outlaw encryption across the board, the worst-case scenario is someone just has to fork it.

There's no guarantee that the client you install on your device is built from the same source code that is publicly available, unless you build the client yourself from that source code. I suspect no one is doing that at this point (since Noise died with CopperheadOS).

Right, for the masses, but for focused enterprise, like a well resourced gang, for instance, refortifying your security is just another build away. Add on some sneakernet transport and side-load instructions and the only people affected by a weakened platform is everyone else.

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#18

Post by noobermin »

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #15
seorphates wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? You kind of lost me. Isn't the actual issue math?

The issue is the government wanting to strip the encryption going forward. In other words, even the most decentralized & encrypted app can still have NSA_RemoteConn.Log(dat) written into it's source code

Stripping encryption is one thing, sure. But for the backdoor, you'd have to have the clients phone nsaserv.spy/writeremoteconnlog then or sure, write some record on the client's device. You can't "tap" encrypted communications unless you can figure out how to factor integers then you'd get a Field's medal.

Or, ofc, get people to adopt insecure protocols. That we know (or have good suspicion) they've tried.

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#19

Post by noobermin »

craftyguy wrote: post #8
CGamesPlay wrote: post #7

At what point does the technical community stop trying to technically interfere with the efforts of law enforcement, and start trying to change the laws that make law enforcement behave this way?

Probably at the point where elected officials start to care. They won't care until their voters care, and most voters don't seem to care about or understand the issue here since it does not affect most of them in any meaningful/measurable way.

I think they care. A majority of the country did not want NN to be repealed but it was. The problem is their vote means little and understandably, many tune out and don't vote or choose between lesser of two evils.
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