Lots of uninformed conspiratorial comments with zero proof in here, but I'd really like WhatsApp to get their encryption audited by a reliable, independent 3rd party.
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US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private
81–90 of 387 posts
Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private
#82Meanwhile Apple has always been able to read encrypted iMessage messages and everyone decided to ignore that fact. https://james.darpinian.com/blog/apple-imessage-encryption
Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private
#83I always assumed this to be true, to be honest. Nowadays all of the messaging pipeline on my phone is closed source and proprietary, and thus unverifiable at all. The iPhone operating system is closed, the runtime is closed, the whatsapp client is closed, the protocol is closed… hard to believe any claim. And i know that somebody’s gonna bring up the alleged e2e encryption… a client in control of somebody else might…
it doesn't need to be open source for us to know what it's doing. its properties are well understood by the security community because it's been RE'd.
> a client in control of somebody else might just leak the encryption keys from one end of the chat.
has nothing to do with closed/open source. preventing this requires remote attestation. i don't know of any messaging app out there that really does this, closed or open source.
also, ironically remote attestation is the antithesis of open source.
Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private
#84> “We look forward to moving forward with those claims and note WhatsApp’s denials have all been carefully worded in a way that stops short of denying the central allegation in the complaint – that Meta has the ability to read WhatsApp messages, regardless of its claims about end-to-end encryption.” My money is on the chats being end to end encrypted and separately uploaded to Facebook.
>being end to end encrypted and separately uploaded to Facebook
That's a cute loophole you thought up, but whatsapp's marketing is pretty unequivocal that they can't read your messages.
>With end-to-end encryption on WhatsApp, your personal messages and calls are secured with a lock. Only you and the person you're talking to can read or listen to them, and no one else, not even WhatsApp
That's not to say it's impossible that they are secretly uploading your messages, but the implication that they could be secretly doing so while not running afoul of their own claims because of cute word games, is outright false.
Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private
#85This should surprise nobody. Do you really think that the intelligence agencies of the US etc would allow mainstream E2E encryption? Please stop being so naive
Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private
#86Meanwhile Apple has always been able to read encrypted iMessage messages and everyone decided to ignore that fact. https://james.darpinian.com/blog/apple-imessage-encryption
>has always been able to read encrypted iMessage messages
...assuming you have icloud backups enabled, which is... totally expected? What's next, complaining about bitlocker being backdoored because microsoft can read your onedrive files?
Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private
#87Whatsapp is considered insecure and banned from use for military in Russia. Telegram, on the other hand, is widely used. Of course that's not something definitive, but just a food for thought.
Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private
#88> “We look forward to moving forward with those claims and note WhatsApp’s denials have all been carefully worded in a way that stops short of denying the central allegation in the complaint – that Meta has the ability to read WhatsApp messages, regardless of its claims about end-to-end encryption.” My money is on the chats being end to end encrypted and separately uploaded to Facebook.
I really doubt this. Any such upload would be visible inside the WhatsApp application, which would make it the world's most exciting (and relatively straightforward) RE project. You can even start with a Java app, so it's extra easy.
Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private
#89I always assumed Meta has backdoor that at least allows them to compromise key individuals if men in black ask, but law firm representing NSO courageously defending the people? Come the fuck on. > Our colleagues’ defence of NSO on appeal has nothing to do with the facts disclosed to us and which form the basis of the lawsuit we brought for worldwide WhatsApp users.
> I always assumed Meta has backdoor that at least allows them to compromise key individuals if men in black ask
According to Meta's own voluntarily published official statements, they do not.
* FAQ on encryption: https://faq.whatsapp.com/820124435853543
* FAQ for law enforcement: https://faq.whatsapp.com/444002211197967
These representations are legally binding. If Meta were intentionally lying on these, it would invite billions of dollars of liability. They use similar terminology as Signal and the best private VPN companies: we can't read and don't retain message content, so law enforcement can't ask for it. They do keep some "meta" information and will provide it with a valid subpoenoa.
The latter link even clarifies Meta's interpretation of their responsibilities under "National Security Letters", which the US Government has tried to use to circumvent 4th amendment protections in the past:
> We interpret the national security letter provision as applied to WhatsApp to require the production of only two categories of information: name and length of service.
I guess we'll see if this lawsuit goes anywhere or discovery reveals anything surprising.
Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private
#90Whatsapp is considered insecure and banned from use for military in Russia. Telegram, on the other hand, is widely used. Of course that's not something definitive, but just a food for thought.
> but just a food for thought.
...that telegram is backdoored by the russians? The implication you're trying to make seems to be that russians must be choosing telegram because it's secure, but are ignoring the possibility that they're choosing telegram because they have access to it. After all, you think they want the possibility of their military scheming against them?