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Meta Shuts Down End-to-End Encryption for Instagram Messaging

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Re: Meta Shuts Down End-to-End Encryption for Instagram Messaging

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a fan of zack (quite the opposite), but he isn't wrong here. Apple indeed didn't come up with anything new. Their PR stunts each year are more and more laughable as time goes by. Neither did Meta, but that's a different discussion

The iPhone and Apple Watch don't count in your book? They are both younger than 20 years. I think the iPhone changed the mobile market. I don't think it was for the better but it was 'new'. It might also be just where I live but I see more Apple Watches than any other digital watches. Maybe not as 'new' but they certainly changed the watch market as well, for better or worse. I can't think of a single new thing Faceb…

Fair enough, for some reason I thought iphone is older than 20 years. iPhone was indeed a great product and it changed market, no doubt about it.

Apple Watch doesn't really count in my books - it's just a silly toy without much practical use (of course YMMV).

> I can't think of a single new thing Facebook did in 20 years that stuck

Again, I am not a fan of Meta. They didn't invent anything, arguably including FB itself, but again, this is topic for a separate discussion.

Re: Meta Shuts Down End-to-End Encryption for Instagram Messaging

#142
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it doesn't necessarily have to be tied to monetization & privacy directly. It may just be that ROI doesn't make sense: very few user out there truly care about (or even understand) E2EE, for quite some users it creates an inconvenience & support incidents (harder to move from device to device, forgot your passphrase - lost your history, new joiners to a group chat don't see previous history, etc), it requires a signi…

It doesn't have to be, but that's not really an argument for claiming it isn't. Considering how deeply embedded privacy violation is in Meta's corporate DNA, is there any reason other than hilariously naïve and inexplicably charitable, hypothetical speculation to believe this is not motivated by more privacy violation for profit, just like literally every single thing Meta has done in the entire history of the compan…

were you in that room where Adam was making that call? No? didn't think so...

Just give people some benefit of doubt. There're much simpler ways to explain certain things that suspecting some universal evil in every move...

Re: Meta Shuts Down End-to-End Encryption for Instagram Messaging

#143

It's too bad we fell so hard for centralization. In an alternate universe, messaging on the Internet could have been: 1. Alice's device has a publicly routable IP address with a domain name like alice.home.her.isp 2. Bob's device is has same qualities, using: bob.mobile.his.isp Then Alice can just open her chat app up, add bob@bob.mobile.his.isp and off they go. I mean we had UNIX's "talk" for how long but instead of…

Didn't you just describe email?

Re: Meta Shuts Down End-to-End Encryption for Instagram Messaging

#144

People here like it, but end-to-end encryption is an objectively worse user experience for people that don't care about that feature

How is it a worse experience? It's ridiculously simple: The app sends a public key to the person you're talking to. The end user doesn't even need to notice it. What am I missing here?

Re: Meta Shuts Down End-to-End Encryption for Instagram Messaging

#145

Put simply: I’ve talked to Apple engineers. Siri fell behind due to how good Apple’s privacy is. Everyone made fun of them for protecting them. This is exactly the opposite of that, where Mark is throwing you and your children under the bus again because he’s unoriginal and doesn’t know how to make money any other way than by getting all up in your business, statistically.

Siri fell behind because the bean counters at Cupertino didn’t want to spend on it, this is well documented and has nothing to do with privacy.

Re: Meta Shuts Down End-to-End Encryption for Instagram Messaging

#146

I'm not sure if this meets the bar for substantive and thoughtful discussion, but this kind of corporate cowardice, enforced by unelected bureaucrats standing at the bully pulpit is only going to get worse as the noose tightens on the open web. The combination of hardware attestation and walled garden "app stores" is the end goal of most policymakers in this area, and it happens to suit the monopolists in Google and…

It's not just "the death of the open web". These decisions are made whilst America is falling to fascism. Meta may not intend for the abolition of E2E encryption to make fascist crackdown on free speech easier, but that is the reality of what abolishing E2E encryption does. DHS is already subpoenaing tech companies for the information about users who criticize ICE. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/dhs-an…

This is getting pushed in the EU too, the crucial thing to understand about where the road is headed: the goal is the inverse of who does the illicit content scanning. The idea is the government gives a list of illegal activity/speech to the platforms (such as anti-ICE activism or speaking in support of Palestinians) and then the platforms scan (presumably with LLMs) all public and private messages, deletes them and forwards them to federal and local law enforcement of the user. This is why E2E is under attack everywhere, because it makes that impossible.

Re: Meta Shuts Down End-to-End Encryption for Instagram Messaging

#147

It's too bad we fell so hard for centralization. In an alternate universe, messaging on the Internet could have been: 1. Alice's device has a publicly routable IP address with a domain name like alice.home.her.isp 2. Bob's device is has same qualities, using: bob.mobile.his.isp Then Alice can just open her chat app up, add bob@bob.mobile.his.isp and off they go. I mean we had UNIX's "talk" for how long but instead of…

Have a look at Keet, it’s a p2p IM app, works on mobile and desktop, behind NAT and all. To be honest it’s not even the only app in this game.

It just seems like nobody cares about these things until the frog already boiled.

Re: Meta Shuts Down End-to-End Encryption for Instagram Messaging

#148
post #143

It's too bad we fell so hard for centralization. In an alternate universe, messaging on the Internet could have been: 1. Alice's device has a publicly routable IP address with a domain name like alice.home.her.isp 2. Bob's device is has same qualities, using: bob.mobile.his.isp Then Alice can just open her chat app up, add bob@bob.mobile.his.isp and off they go. I mean we had UNIX's "talk" for how long but instead of…

Didn't you just describe email?

No, email is federated, what he described is clearly p2p.

Re: Meta Shuts Down End-to-End Encryption for Instagram Messaging

#149

Put simply: I’ve talked to Apple engineers. Siri fell behind due to how good Apple’s privacy is. Everyone made fun of them for protecting them. This is exactly the opposite of that, where Mark is throwing you and your children under the bus again because he’s unoriginal and doesn’t know how to make money any other way than by getting all up in your business, statistically.

> Siri fell behind due to how good Apple’s privacy is. That makes zero sense. The problem with Siri is... Siri. The interface itself. Zero of my complaints around Siri have to do with it not being able to access my private data. They're entirely about it not understanding my request in the first place or lacking a basic capability.

It’s not about your data.

It’s about the sum of all expression being able to be reflected back to you in such a way that Dawkins believes he’s met intelligent life.

Facebook and Google just slurped up their data centers, while Apple was encrypted.

Re: Meta Shuts Down End-to-End Encryption for Instagram Messaging

#150
post #98

It's too bad we fell so hard for centralization. In an alternate universe, messaging on the Internet could have been: 1. Alice's device has a publicly routable IP address with a domain name like alice.home.her.isp 2. Bob's device is has same qualities, using: bob.mobile.his.isp Then Alice can just open her chat app up, add bob@bob.mobile.his.isp and off they go. I mean we had UNIX's "talk" for how long but instead of…

If people spent half the time they do wishing for decentralized messaging working on the actual problems with it, we would have decentralized messaging.

If people spent 5 minutes googling decentralized alternatives to stuff they would realize they don’t need to build anything, just pick something and use.
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