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WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

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Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#41

Post by Sargos »

munchbunny wrote: post #38
Sargos wrote: post #10

This problem is only going to grow in the future. You can't control or reliably censor information on a free and open internet. The only way to ensure that nothing "bad" happens on the internet is to completely lock it down and whitelist everything that is posted. This isn't going to happen. In a few years blockchain based messaging apps will be launching and they will not be controlled by Facebook or anyone else. Yo…

blockchain based messaging apps Out of genuine curiosity, where do blockchains enter into the messaging space? Auditable chat histories and identities? As opposed to other cryptography/security techniques, blockchain doesn't seem like an especially good match for the problem space.

Messengers need someone to host and maintain the servers. That requires a monetization model and requires someone to act as a central figure. That figure (like Facebook) then has to either moderate the content or try to make a case of not being able to but still facilitating it.

A messenger using the blockchain as its medium requires no staff to operate it and has nobody responsible for it. There is nobody to blame for whatever it's used for and nobody to dictate what it can and can't be used for. The group chats will simply exist and require no maintenance which is very desirable from an app point of view. Also a big positive is that you don't have to worry about the company running your messenger going out of business and then you lose the ability to use your app.

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#42

Post by djohnston »

munchbunny wrote: post #38
Sargos wrote: post #10

This problem is only going to grow in the future. You can't control or reliably censor information on a free and open internet. The only way to ensure that nothing "bad" happens on the internet is to completely lock it down and whitelist everything that is posted. This isn't going to happen. In a few years blockchain based messaging apps will be launching and they will not be controlled by Facebook or anyone else. Yo…

blockchain based messaging apps Out of genuine curiosity, where do blockchains enter into the messaging space? Auditable chat histories and identities? As opposed to other cryptography/security techniques, blockchain doesn't seem like an especially good match for the problem space.

knock knock "government telling you you're in trouble and need to take down your content.. wait whose building is this?"

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#44

Post by albertgoeswoof »

Is it possible to use metadata to understand these networks without actually decrypting anything?

If you can track down a bunch of these groups through public / advertised urls you can probably figure out a whole bunch of them based on the participants in each group. I bet it forms a beautiful graph.

There might be some other user patterns you can identify which point to suspicious groups / patterns as well

How else could you solve this? Create hashes of known illegal images and check them locally?

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#46

Post by exolymph »

gmaster1440 wrote: post #6

Newsflash: e2e encryption is used to send content that stands to gain most from using it.

As someone who strongly believes that people should have the ability to communicate truly privately, I upvoted you because you're correct and people need to be honest about it.

The problem is that "content that stands to gain most from using [encryption]" also includes activists protesting authoritarian governments, or even government officials themselves who don't want to be spied on by their rivals, or victims of stalkers and domestic violence.

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#47

Post by hiccuphippo »

Sargos wrote: post #41
munchbunny wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

blockchain based messaging apps Out of genuine curiosity, where do blockchains enter into the messaging space? Auditable chat histories and identities? As opposed to other cryptography/security techniques, blockchain doesn't seem like an especially good match for the problem space.

Messengers need someone to host and maintain the servers. That requires a monetization model and requires someone to act as a central figure. That figure (like Facebook) then has to either moderate the content or try to make a case of not being able to but still facilitating it. A messenger using the blockchain as its medium requires no staff to operate it and has nobody responsible for it. There is nobody to blame f…

There's already p2p messaging apps that do that without any blockchain nonsense. The blockchain would leave a permanent trace to which pseudonym posted what forever.

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#48

Post by Matt3o12_ »

ars wrote: post #16
GreaterFool wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. It's just bad writing in the opening paragraph. WhatsApp doesn't provide search but groups can be joined via links. Third-party apps and sites use the links to index groups. Some groups share illegal content. WhatsApp should hire people to crawl those apps/sites, find the illegal groups, join, verify and ban. Not entirely unreasonable. Won't fix anything* but if the company is big and well funded they should at…

> so you ban the users? $10 gets you a new pre-paid sim card And then when they recycle the unused number, and you get it and discover you are "lifetime banned", and I'm quite sure there's no appeal process.

I don’t get why you were downvoted. Life time banning new phone numbers is a real concern considering how often they are recycled. I mean WhatsApp isn’t doing that (as far as i know) but some services do that or even do a step further and ban your whole account if you add a banned phone number.

For instance, steams anti-cheating service will lifetime ban you and your phone number if you ever get chaught cheating in any game that uses steam anti cheating services. And apparently you will also get banned if you update your account to a previously banned number. That sucks for normal users who get a new phone number but doesn’t do much against determined cheaters who just purchase a new SIM card if they get caught (and they won’t use their real steam account as well).

Steam is not the only service that heavily relies on phone numbers not changing and I find it very troubling how little is reported about that (which might become a real concern later).

I believe the only reason WhatsApp doesn’t do that is because 90% of all people aged 16 to 69 use it at least a few times a week in many of their markets and a recycled phone number will very likely be given to a new, innocent user (unlike smaller sites such as steam where giving a cheaters number to another person who also uses steam is quite slim).

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#49

Post by claudiawerner »

GreaterFool wrote: post #4
enlyth wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing since these are publicly accessible groups via apps as the article suggests, moderators could in theory search out and shut down such groups. Not sure how much data they are able to provide to the authorities though, I guess prosecuting the people is the difficult part.

Yeah. It's just bad writing in the opening paragraph. WhatsApp doesn't provide search but groups can be joined via links. Third-party apps and sites use the links to index groups. Some groups share illegal content. WhatsApp should hire people to crawl those apps/sites, find the illegal groups, join, verify and ban. Not entirely unreasonable. Won't fix anything* but if the company is big and well funded they should at…

While it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable, I can't help but feel it's the state we're at. A platform having to trawl the web to find links to its own service, infiltrate itself, verify the contents, then shut it down... I suspect a marginally easier way might be to maintain a list of referrer URLs/joining IPs (or start collecting them) and check them against a list of domains/IPs of sites known for sharing CP.

I'm also not sure to what extent the onus should be on WhatsApp to try and remove this stuff, in the same way that I'm not sure to what extent the onus is on Google to trawl through Gmail inboxes it finds through crawling child porn sharing sites - the latter idea seems ridiculous to me, but maybe it's just because of the scale of the platform or the issue, but with a lack of hard data made available as to the extent of WhatsApp being used for CP, I think it's better to remain skeptical.

But I will add this: if (and it's a very big "if") it is determined that it is right (in whatever sense we can use the word) to stop people using the platform in this way, I would never consider "but it costs money to do that" to be a reason against doing it in most cases. Justice doesn't stop because it's expensive.

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#50

Post by ars »

rorykoehler wrote: post #43
ars wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The join group links are public. So not really encrypted, since the key is public.

So then the police should do their jobs?

I actually agree, I don't think this should be WhatsApp's job. I really don't like this trend of making private companies do the job of Police, Judge, and executioner.
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