171–180 of 243 posts
But would it do that and admit that when it's not really worth? Din't you have to be really really notorious for them to use this kind of evidence in a court? If I were them and could decrypt something I would prefer to keep this fact secret.
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> As if you can create a secret communication channel that members of the public can join but the FBI is unable to infiltrate. Back in the day people used to, hilariously, have MOTD notices on all of their illegal servers saying the internet equivalent of "You have to tell me if you're a cop".
I first saw that on BBS's, and it made it's way onto some forums in the early days of the web. I always found it humorous what laws they'd cite, when they bother to, to say basically "By clicking this button you assert you're not law enforcement officer".
If you own the phone, the messages are decrypted. This seems to be more about the phone access than anything to do with Signal, right?
Of course. All these articles and "criticisms" of Signal started popping up right after the recent WhatsApp mini exodus. What a coincidence.
Thomas Brewster has been on the encrypted messaging apps and law enforcement beat for a very long time and puts these stories out with regularity
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Being a figure of speech has little to do with the statement being factually incorrect.
Yes it does, since it's not presented as factual.
Universal encryption is a defense against blanket vacuuming of communications for later offline analysis. Its a defense against a massive parallel MITM attack against the world's communications infrastructure. Its not a defense against targeted attacks of individual devices.
In addition to this, I frequently hear people talk about how Signal would prevent monitoring of groups like those that stormed the capital. As if you can create a secret communication channel that members of the public can join but the FBI is unable to infiltrate. Signal and E2EE stop dragnets, not targeted efforts. Which honestly is exactly what I want and seems like what we want in a free and open society. Monitori…
THIS.
Thank you for your eloquence.
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Talking quietly at the local pub is resistant to all but the most sophisticated surveillance efforts too. It's only very recently that people have been communicating over the internet, allowing the mass surveillance. All encryption does is return us back to the pre 1990s in terms of surveillance capabilities.
Exactly. Or going for a walk in the forest - many of these conversations are now happening online. On the flip side, even ordinary phone calls and messages are often encrypted by default now, which used to be much more readily available to law enforcement. It's such an interesting situation, society-wise.
[citation needed]
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Actually this is not correct, you can also use key which is destroyed on lock.
For instant messaging you need to be able to receive messages even when the phone is locked. So the key material can't be destroyed and must be left exposed. You could encrypt old messages separately, but the result would end up being very inconvenient.
This is a trade off between server load and security.
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Yes. But note that Signal doesn't know your number. Usernames are being promised this year too.
> But note that Signal doesn't know your number Courts can compel them to keep these records, and require them to not disclose to their customers that they are doing so.
Signal was subpoenaed in court, and told to give up information[0] on certain customers. They replied the only information they had was the time the account was created and the date of the last connection. Admittedly, this was over 5 years ago. They fought to get these court records released.
[0]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/10/fbi-demands-sign...
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The iPhone's terrible battery life isn't a bug, it's a privacy feature! I wonder if the FBI's evidence protocol involves immediately plugging in an iPhone to maintain the vulnerable state: > That latter acronym stands for “after first unlock” and describes an iPhone in a certain state: an iPhone that is locked but that has been unlocked once and not turned off. An iPhone in this state is more susceptible to having da…
One thing they did do: if you bring up the power off screen (by holding power, or power+volume up, depending on model) then it disables biometric unlock, even if you don't power it off. Bringing up the power off slider screen is sufficient to force a passcode-only unlock.
If you own the phone, the messages are decrypted. This seems to be more about the phone access than anything to do with Signal, right?
The iPhone's terrible battery life isn't a bug, it's a privacy feature! I wonder if the FBI's evidence protocol involves immediately plugging in an iPhone to maintain the vulnerable state: > That latter acronym stands for “after first unlock” and describes an iPhone in a certain state: an iPhone that is locked but that has been unlocked once and not turned off. An iPhone in this state is more susceptible to having da…