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Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

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Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#391

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

vbezhenar wrote: post #358
_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #278

A backdoor that will be exploited by criminal third-parties. Even if you (against all sense and reason) trust the US and UK governments, this is a move that will expose your data to criminals.

Not necessarily. Simplest implementation is to use government public key to encrypt session key and include that encrypted session key into a message. You can implement it with open source code, yet only government who possesses corresponding private key can decrypt the message. I think that it'll be secure enough. If private company can keep their CA key in secret, government can do that too. Hardware Security Modul…

> only government who possesses corresponding private key can decrypt the message

Yes, that sounds like a secure system. Surely no private keys would ever leak out of a government through incompetence or corruption.

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#393

Post by samstave »

Wtf is HNs lack of knowledge of history?

We have known since at least 1997 that all Cisco (and other) equipment has had backdoors in them.

Like why the fuck would you even be surprised at this at this point.

EVERYTHING YOU DO IS CAPTURED.

Downvote away yee who are uninformed

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#394

Post by fortran77 »

GordonS wrote: post #220

The idea that moves like this will "keep us safe" is utterly preposterous; there are a multitude of other ways in which terrorists (or the boogeyman de jour ) could communicate - are the UK and US governments going to insist on backdooring IRC, Slack and face-to-face conversations? Are they going to outlaw encryption libraries? I truely fear for the future that western governments, in particular the 5 eyes members, a…

IRC clients are largely open source. How do we know they haven't been backdoored?

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#395

Post by wcathcart »

We were surprised to read this story and are not aware of discussions that would force us to change our product.

We believe people have a fundamental right to have private conversations. End-to-end encryption protects that right for over a billion people every day.

We will always oppose government attempts to build backdoors because they would weaken the security of everyone who uses WhatsApp including governments themselves. In times like these we must stand up both for the security and the privacy of our users everywhere. We will continue do so.

Will, Head of WhatsApp

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#396

Post by Buge »

ryeights wrote: post #252
smudgymcscmudge wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On re-reading the sort article, I realize it only says they will be compelled to share "encrypted messages" and "information to support investigations". It never says anything about decrypting the messages. If that is literally all it is, then it is quite misleading.

What use would ciphertext be to GCHQ? I’m fairly certain that “encrypted messages” describes which messages they will have to provide in plaintext, not the format they will come in.

Your interpretation is likely right. But it's interesting to consider the other. Maybe they can get metadata from the ciphertext, such as size. Or maybe they are just interested in other metadata such as time. Or maybe they have some cryptographic attacks, maybe involving extracting a shared key from the peer's phone, or key injection via sim spoofing.

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#397

Post by concordDance »

cryptozeus wrote: post #314
nindalf wrote: post #271

Yes, this is something that literally everyone who reads HN will oppose. Meanwhile do you hear the deafening silence from the average Joe who thinks he has "nothing to hide"? Don't hate the politicians who keep pushing this. They're just trying not to get fired. And the surest way to get fired in a western country right now is to be seen doing nothing about the terrorism problem and then having terrorist acts committ…

It is not the question if you have something to hide or not but once they have unlimited access like this, what is stopping them from manufacturing truth and bend the information to support their biases. Privacy IMO is more important.

Could you elaborate in the link between unlimited access and manufacturing truth?

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#398

Post by spuz »

wcathcart wrote: post #395

We were surprised to read this story and are not aware of discussions that would force us to change our product. We believe people have a fundamental right to have private conversations. End-to-end encryption protects that right for over a billion people every day. We will always oppose government attempts to build backdoors because they would weaken the security of everyone who uses WhatsApp including governments th…

So are you saying the backdoors will or won't be introduced to WhatsApp?

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#399

Post by DollarGuru »

gtycomb wrote: post #336
fabiospampinato wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah only a stupid person can think that backdooring whatsapp will actually prevent the next 9/11. And that's in my opinion the core issue with most politicians, stupidity/tech illiteracy. I'd love to hear about either a possible alternative government structure in which there are no politicians or a way to attract the smartest people in governments.

Politicians are not at all stupid in general. The problem we have is in their selective listening after we elect them. If a legislator is not technically up to speed, considerable tax payer money goes towards hiring people in government to do the research and the explaining. Some high level advisers may come from organizations with a private agenda and after a few years of working within the goverment these experts p…

Along with the vote in process there should be a vote out process. The public should be able to force a vote of their representative at any time during their term and equally vote in their replacement.

The intention being that politicians are aware that they must be consistent with their words and actions throughout their term otherwise they will lose their seat.

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#400

Post by m0dest »

nabla9 wrote: post #134

Nowhere in the article is backdoor mentioned. Only sharing data that is encrypted. US an UK governments can't just force FB to add backdoor. It would require new legislation. FB must play ball for that to happen. Since WhatsApp has forward secrecy and end-to-end encryption, giving access to encrypted data is not easy to use. There might be some useful metadata that helps though.

Agree. The title of this post is dangerously deceptive and should be changed. The linked source does not claim or substantiate any backdoor.

>"will be forced to share users’ encrypted messages with British police"

So far, all the article is saying is that ciphertext will have to be shared. Anything about decrypted messages is speculation at this point.

(It would be very bad if a backdoor will be forced.)

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