Can someone fill me in on why people are upset Facbook will be consolidating DMs/PMs accross services - using E2E ? I've went other the past news releases, it seems to be a good thing to me.
Usual Facebook hatred on HN - move along, nothing to see.
“Facebook are going to monetize encrypted messaging by consolidating metadata”
61–70 of 105 posts
Re: “Facebook are going to monetize encrypted messaging by consolidating metadata”
#62The Facebook outrage mob reminds me of my slashdot days when everyone referred to Microsoft as Micro$oft. Doesn't it feel weird that there used to be positive facebook stories, but now its all negative 24/7?
Maybe if facebook wants some positive stories about them, they should... I don't know... do positive things?
Easier communication between the apps, with e2e? How dare they!
Re: “Facebook are going to monetize encrypted messaging by consolidating metadata”
#63Can someone fill me in on why people are upset Facbook will be consolidating DMs/PMs accross services - using E2E ? I've went other the past news releases, it seems to be a good thing to me.
Metadata + Countries where Rule Of Law doesn't apply + "Law" Enforcement requests E.g. Middle East countries
If we can assume Facebook's apps aren't lying (i.e. E2E is properly implemented - this seems to be the case with WhatsApp) then this is better for those exact purposes.
Even the star child Signal [1] has to store metadata...
Re: “Facebook are going to monetize encrypted messaging by consolidating metadata”
#64Can someone fill me in on why people are upset Facbook will be consolidating DMs/PMs accross services - using E2E ? I've went other the past news releases, it seems to be a good thing to me.
Usual Facebook hatred on HN - move along, nothing to see.
I love to hate on Facebook to, but the point is that they get better - and this seems to be and excellent start!
But I've yet to find similar opinions in tech groups online or even less techy spaces.
Re: “Facebook are going to monetize encrypted messaging by consolidating metadata”
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Burger King has a veggie Big Mac. https://www.bk.com/menu-item/veggie-burger Steganography has a bad connotation because it's heavily used in the pedophilia realm which would limit it's uptake, somewhat like torrents. Perfectly valid and useful tech that gets used by a few but not by most. I think Telegram, even with it's flaws, is the closest I've come to an easy to use encrypted messaging app that I can get my moth…
I don't think anyone cares if pedophiles use it. They only care if it will work for them. Heck, if it keeps pedophiles safe that's a pretty good endorsement. I think the primary road block for most people is not seeing a use case combined with the technology not being readily available (excluding a few apps that aren't compatible with each other).
I think you're grossly under selling the emotional response the larger public user base would have to being associated with paedophilia. Albeit, even if it's tangibly associated via an app.
Unfortunately that's the nature of the beast. You and I, in addition to our peers would probably see it as an endorsement (as you coffecfly stated). But we're not Joe Bloggs.
The feeling of disgust is so easily manipulated amongst the greater public.
Re: “Facebook are going to monetize encrypted messaging by consolidating metadata”
#66This article specifically talks about sex workers using whatsapp and the fact that because of meta data sharing, IF a warrant comes from the government to find users associated with a certain group (such as sex workers groups) on Facebook, it indirectly brings whatsapp users into that group as well through indirect means. Interesting issue yet so many "if"s. The reality is that Facebook needs to make money from whats…
1- Charge for the service (whatsapp will lose 90% of its userbase in a month) Why? Whatsapp used to charge a yearly fee for the app.
For $1 I'd agree most of the user base would commit to paying it too.
Re: “Facebook are going to monetize encrypted messaging by consolidating metadata”
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
> can pass through any channel that accepts images No. Any online service worth its salt is going to reencode images to serve proper sizes and maybe do other processing. Along the way stuff like EXIF data and other worthless (for displaying the image) chuff will get stripped from the image. Alternatively, if you mean not somehow embedding in the file but encoding in the actual pixels of the image, that data will get…
> No. Yes. Any algorithm designed to be resilient to common processing steps will pass this test with flying colors. Also, EXIF data is not used in steganography, by definition.
That’s a moving target with no guarantees to stay true. Steganography in the use cases you’ve described adds complexity and additional portability challenges over a plain encrypted file.
Re: “Facebook are going to monetize encrypted messaging by consolidating metadata”
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
But what are you saying people should do? Only communicate information that I don’t mind being public using traditional non-secure messaging systems, and use stegonagraphy whenever one wants to communicate private information?
Steganography+encryption has a number of use cases. The one I think is most interesting is being able to store encrypted data locally with ease. Right now if I want to encrypt some text I have a number of options. I can encrypt the hard drive. I can encrypt a text file to a binary encrypted file. I can encrypt a text file to a text file with something like pgp. But none of those are what I would call user friendly. B…
Can you elaborate on the logic of why saving encrypted text to an image file is more user-friendly than saving it to a text file? Why would that make people more comfortable?
Re: “Facebook are going to monetize encrypted messaging by consolidating metadata”
#69Surveillance on the general public is bought by employers/businesses not security services. Yet all these articles keep mentioning law enforcement. 90% of people don’t care if the NSA/FBI are mining their communication for criminal activity. They would care if they realized it affected their job offers, they would care if they realized it means lower wages, less competition, less political freedom. The USA has long a…
The problem with the FBI/NSA mining their communication "for criminal activity" is that they probably don't do it exclusively for that. After Snowden we found out that sometimes NSA employees would use this snooping to stalk people they wanted to be in a relationship with, spy on their neighbors and other such unsavory things.
Also we have already built and running mass-oppression infrastructure which could be used for incredibly evil things as soon as someone high up in the executive branch (or congress if they passed a law) said so. Makes us incredibly insecure in the event of a dictatorship-type overthrow
Re: “Facebook are going to monetize encrypted messaging by consolidating metadata”
#70The Facebook outrage mob reminds me of my slashdot days when everyone referred to Microsoft as Micro$oft. Doesn't it feel weird that there used to be positive facebook stories, but now its all negative 24/7?
> The Facebook outrage mob reminds me of my slashdot days when everyone referred to Microsoft as Micro$oft. The fight against old Microsoft is a win-win success story (for now, I'm keeping an eye on all big players and so should everyone else.) Microsoft is nicer and I think more profitable than ever. They don't call our code or favourite OS cancer anymore but actively support us. My understanding is even a lot of MS…
It took Microsoft a top-level executive change (Satya) to fix itself. Facebook shows no signs of an executive change until Mark retires and devotes himself to full time philanthropy so the world doesn’t remember him as evil (who else does that remind you of...)