We Chat, They Watch
citizenlab.ca
We Chat, They Watch
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Re: We Chat, They Watch
#2Also a thread by Citizen Lab researcher: https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1258391908319137797
Re: We Chat, They Watch
#3Did anyone actually think WeChat communications are secure?
Do we have reason to believe iMessage and Whatsapp are more secure?
Re: We Chat, They Watch
#4Did anyone actually think WeChat communications are secure? Do we have reason to believe iMessage and Whatsapp are more secure?
wrt iMessage, yes, it’s E2EE and the keys are not stored in iCloud if you disable iMessage backup. Granted Apple still owns the keyset gets so, eh, depends on how paranoid you wanna get.
Re: We Chat, They Watch
#5Did anyone actually think WeChat communications are secure? Do we have reason to believe iMessage and Whatsapp are more secure?
WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted so the service providers themselves can't read the message content, yes, definitely. Although, technically the security guarantees are nil unless you verify safety numbers which I can guarantee almost nobody actually does.
Re: We Chat, They Watch
#6Did anyone actually think WeChat communications are secure? Do we have reason to believe iMessage and Whatsapp are more secure?
I mean there’s a white paper on iMessage’s security, and there isn’t (i don’t think) on WeChat. WhatsApp’s encryption uses libsignal.
The security qualities of iMessage and WhatsApp is known. It’s not of WeChat.
Re: We Chat, They Watch
#7Did anyone actually think WeChat communications are secure? Do we have reason to believe iMessage and Whatsapp are more secure?
WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted so the service providers themselves can't read the message content, yes, definitely. Although, technically the security guarantees are nil unless you verify safety numbers which I can guarantee almost nobody actually does.
iMessage is e2e encrypted but Apple has the key... so I would not consider this e2e....
Re: We Chat, They Watch
#8Did anyone actually think WeChat communications are secure? Do we have reason to believe iMessage and Whatsapp are more secure?
wrt iMessage, yes, it’s E2EE and the keys are not stored in iCloud if you disable iMessage backup. Granted Apple still owns the keyset gets so, eh, depends on how paranoid you wanna get.
Any time others have access to your keys the only logical assumption is that they already know. Relying on goodwill is just naive
Re: We Chat, They Watch
#9Did anyone actually think WeChat communications are secure? Do we have reason to believe iMessage and Whatsapp are more secure?
WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted so the service providers themselves can't read the message content, yes, definitely. Although, technically the security guarantees are nil unless you verify safety numbers which I can guarantee almost nobody actually does.
You also have to trust the source code, or trust a recent audit, then also make sure the build you have kept it's integrity and matches the audit build.
Re: We Chat, They Watch
#10Did anyone actually think WeChat communications are secure? Do we have reason to believe iMessage and Whatsapp are more secure?
wrt iMessage, yes, it’s E2EE and the keys are not stored in iCloud if you disable iMessage backup. Granted Apple still owns the keyset gets so, eh, depends on how paranoid you wanna get.
Yep. WhatsApp is better and Signal is better still, but iMessage's level of privacy and security is more than enough for someone who isn't specifically targeted by a nation-state-level actor.