AWS acquires Wickr

Post by Terretta » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 12:58 AM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #59

colmmacc wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work on cryptography at AWS, and long before that I worked on Skype a bit, so I can't resist commenting! Wickr features end to end cryptography, https://wickr.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/WhitePaper_Wick... , and I can't see why we'd change that (and even that framing is a bit weird, I'm sure Wickr will continue to be autonomous but maybe with access to more resources from the rest of Amazon). Increasingly, end-t…

Appreciating the irony that we've gone to all this trouble to create e2e crypto protocols so that now we can finally trust products like Ring and Alexa to spy on us. The beauty of Wickr is it provided disposable identities and relatively strong anonymity, and fended off bulk interception using an end to end security protocol. The market for it was smaller because while everyone says they want security, I found that t…

Post by yellowfish » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 1:37 AM UTC

noir_lord wrote: post #72

borski wrote: post #7

Wickr is great tech, and I’m glad to see them get a positive outcome - but boy, I really am curious what AWS wants to do with this.

Amazon is pushing hard into government services. Wickr has a large contract already with the US military so I guess this closes a gap they needed closed.

Post by Aaronstotle » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 1:39 AM UTC

SkyPuncher wrote: post #80

knaik94 wrote: post #24

I wonder if this will be used in a more positive way than what most people would assume initially. There are tons of legal situations where confidentiality is absolutely necessary, for example when dealing with medical or legal records. I imagine Amazon's GovCloud might incorporate this as a potential cloud hosted chatting solution. With telemedicine and remote legal proceedings becoming more and more common, secure…

Having implemented HIPAA compliant software, the technical requirements arent very difficult. If you're following developments beat practices, you have 99% of technical requirements covered. The challenge with HIPAA is building process and documentation that demonstrates compliance. It's particularly challenging at the edges of your engineering org where people tend to use tools that abstract the technical details.

Post by ablekh » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 3:51 AM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #111

ablekh wrote: post #108

Never heard about this company before. Took a quick look at their website and noticed that in the table on front page (located in the section "Vetted by the NSA") Zoom is listed as a product lacking "Full E2E Encrypted Functionality". I'm wondering about whether this isn't true (considering Zoom's E2E being GA: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360048660871-End-t... ) - and the table should be fixed - or stil…

There are still cases where it’s not E2E, such as when a user is dialed in via a phone call.

Post by jrockway » Sat, Jun 26, 2021, 4:20 AM UTC

thamer wrote: post #117

counternotions wrote: post #4

Certainly one unexpected way for the government to scare off and shut down nefarious communications happening on Wickr. Note this platform has been popular amongst the darkest underbelly of the web (e.g. carders, drug dealers).

Knowing how Wickr is used by drug dealers, I was surprised to read the author's bio at the end of this announcement: > Prior to AWS, he had an extensive career at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he served as a senior executive and section chief. I reads a bit differently as "ex-FBI brass pleased to announce his new employer acquired your drug dealer's favorite encrypted chat app".