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WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

theguardian.com

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Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#61

Post by SllX »

baby wrote: post #37
brundolf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know in some non-US countries, WhatsApp is the default way of communicating (like SMS is in the US). Is that true in the UK? That could put significant pressure on the government

I live in the bay area in the US and whatsapp is the default way of communicating here as well

Not as default as you might think. I made the attempt to get some non-technical friends on WhatsApp years back, and near as I can tell, none of them are on it at all. In fact, most of them never stopped using Snapchat and iMessage is basically dominant.

Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#62

Post by HeckFeck »

andrejguran wrote: post #50
spoiler wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will do a grand total of nothing to reduce CP, though. It's probably not even going to be an inconvenience. They're already breaking the law and probably jumping through hoops to get access to it.

I disagree that it will be nothing. It will be something larger than 0. First question is how to predict the impact. But more interestingly when we have the impact analysis how to quantify the suffering that will be reduced in comparison with reducing security and how to quantify even that and put these into comparison. (Again I am not on either side just pointing how hard it is to quantify these things)

I don't think you can quantify it in neat charts and numbers. But I suggest that the depraved individuals who consume such materials are already used to being outliers and willing to go to extremes to procure such materials, so in most cases they'll just use whatever dark web crap will serve it. They aren't all as thick as Gary Glitter unfortunately.

Meanwhile 99% of innocent people will be hugely inconvenienced by weakened security, not to mention the amount of suffering caused by data breaches and impersonation, then the loss of jobs and economy for many business wasting resources on downgrading their products for compliance.

Not a great trade IMO.

It is more likely that "only pervs use encryption" is a pretext to appease lazy police or spooks, who just want to hit buttons and get people arrested. I have this suspicion because actually helping children who are exploitable this way is a much more difficult problem than breaking out the banhammer.

Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#63

Post by rwaksmunski »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #41
rwaksmunski wrote: post #33

Dark patterns trick WhatsApp users to enable backups to Google and Apple. If you have them disabled odds are good the other side got tricked into them. Even if your backups are encrypted, it's using only a 64bit key. That means Five Eyes have near real-time access to your "encrypted" messages. Hell, I have to decline backups every time I use WhatsApp on my iPhone, yet after a phone reset all my messages were still th…

> It's naive to think WhatsApp was bought for a different purpose. Sorry, is it naive to think that Facebook bought WhatsApp for its userbase and technology?

> Sorry, is it naive to think that Facebook bought WhatsApp for its userbase and technology?

Well, no. Absolutely not. Until you notice the 20B pricetag. I'm not seeing 20B worth of ads on WhatsApp, are you?

Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#64

Post by [deleted] »

brundolf wrote: post #5
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say that 98% of users are outside the UK (and those users very likely won't want reduced encryption), so whatsapp would probably just exit the UK.

I know in some non-US countries, WhatsApp is the default way of communicating (like SMS is in the US). Is that true in the UK? That could put significant pressure on the government

[deleted]

Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#66

Post by Dylan16807 »

andrejguran wrote: post #34
danbruc wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which always makes me wonder, what is the extend of the child pornography problem? How big is the nail compared to the proposed hammer? If I had to guess, I would guess this is hammer affecting 80+ % of the population to go after a group constituting a fraction of a percent of the population.

That's a very good question: how to quantify child suffering to one of the worst crimes imaginable? I am not saying I am for or against. I am just trying to point how really difficult is to quantify both sides of the equation.

"how to quantify child suffering" is already the wrong question. The focus of efforts like this are usually much more about the pictures than helping the actual children.

Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#67

Post by upofadown »

rany_ wrote: post #2

I can't believe Meta is fighting the good fight for once.

As of something like 2015 they allowed you to add your PGP public key to your profile to get encrypted notification messages. They are pretty much encryption hipsters.

Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#68

Post by haskaalo »

RandallBrown wrote: post #53
mr_mitm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't that right before WhatsApp was bought though? From what I remember they made an effort to implement E2EE before Facebook had any say in it.

Facebook Messenger has had (opt in) E2EE since 2017 I believe.

They're starting to enable it by default recently

Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#69

Post by Quarrelsome »

rwaksmunski wrote: post #63
Quarrelsome wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's naive to think WhatsApp was bought for a different purpose. Sorry, is it naive to think that Facebook bought WhatsApp for its userbase and technology?

> Sorry, is it naive to think that Facebook bought WhatsApp for its userbase and technology? Well, no. Absolutely not. Until you notice the 20B pricetag. I'm not seeing 20B worth of ads on WhatsApp, are you?

From my limited understanding of WhatsApp revenues were healthy prior to the buyout. I have seen some revenue estimates since the buyout that could justify the sale price, should they be accurate.

Re: WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

#70

Post by tracker1 »

Digit-Al wrote: post #8
lewispollard wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone I know here (UK) uses WhatsApp as their default communication tool. I have a few friends using Signal or Telegram, but I'd say WhatsApp is by and large the default, at least for my social circle.

Signal said they may have to pull out of the UK if the bill is enacted as well. This would be a major setback for communications here. We'd basically have to go back to SMS/MMS and email as far as I can tell. I don't know this is a fight the UK government can win. Does anyone else remember that the American government tried to ban encryption (back in the 90's I think it was)? They eventually had to give up because pe…

Or people not on Apple devices side-load the app anyway (F-Droid). Assuming the corporate action is just to remove the market from the Play store.
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