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Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

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Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#151

Post by HenryBemis »

dijit wrote: post #138
vinay427 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of European countries are complicit in similar acts of their own, and many more tacitly assist. I don't think many deserve being painted as a victim of this situation. There's an article right now on the FP about the Netherlands helping GCHQ break Argentinean encryption. In any case, I think the hypocrisy makes sense if you consider that the people saying this are from places (the US + close allies) that proba…

> There's an article right now on the FP about the Netherlands helping GCHQ break Argentinean encryption. EU EU cooperation is different though than US EU cooperation. I will very much agree though, that GCHQ has been in bed with NSA for far too long and it's disgusting. But I think there's a clear delineation between: "Our government does shady things" and "Another nations government does shady things, and incidenta…

> I will very much agree though, that GCHQ has been in bed with NSA for far too long and it's disgusting.

It's wider than that. It feels like UK politicians have always been the loyal pets of US presidents/decisions/agendas, and that is more obvious when EU has a different approach, and the UK just moves on its own. UK has been in bed with the USA (practically USA's little pet) for a long time now. Jean-Claude Juncker said (and apologies, but I cannot find the quote) something along the line (regarding the Brexit-divorce) that "it wasn't a very good marriage to begin with".

UK is the foothold of USA to disrupt a strong, united Europe. I say good riddance. This hurts me since I love the UK (but not what it stands for lately) and I am making my living here, but this shitshow has to stop.

I sincerely hope that Boris won't burn the country down. So far he has done a pretty bad job all across the board (COVID deaths per 1mil, economy, Brexit 'negotiations'-hahahahaha).

He's a true reverse Midas!!! He touches gold, it turns to shit.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#152

Post by akvadrako »

qznc wrote: post #28

In german companies, I see an increasing use of Threema as the "official" messenger. Is that only a german trend?

I live in NL and have never heard of Threema, so it doesn't seem like a spreading trend.

Though it does look interesting. Not FOSS like Signal, but at least a step better than Whatsapp.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#153

Post by akvadrako »

ho_schi wrote: post #60

There are very good messengers, they are just not pushed by big money and group pressure. The problem is always, that people don't care about what they do (to others) and apply group pressure for the benefit of the company. matrix.org For professional usage and IRC like chatrooms. Free and open source software, with several native desktop and phone clients. Doesn't require any phone number and offers E2E encryption.…

There are not really any good messengers across the board.

I have most experience with Signal and though I think the security side is good and it ticks lots of boxes, I often encounter bugs; overall a much worse UX than Whatsapp or Telegram.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#154

Post by C1sc0cat »

vinay427 wrote: post #132
dijit wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I had more than one upvote, this capitulates perfectly my feelings on the situation. I see the same sentiment echoed in our American friends w.r.t. Chinese spying. Huawei is dangerous and must be stopped, but the NSA having broken encryption a bunch of times, sending NSL's to chip makers and such is fine. And that is not seen as hypocritical. We as Europeans have no technological industry without the USA, and…

Plenty of European countries are complicit in similar acts of their own, and many more tacitly assist. I don't think many deserve being painted as a victim of this situation. There's an article right now on the FP about the Netherlands helping GCHQ break Argentinean encryption. In any case, I think the hypocrisy makes sense if you consider that the people saying this are from places (the US + close allies) that proba…

The UK and The Netherlands are NATO members mutual assistance when your attacked is a key part of NATO

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#155

Post by pjmlp »

gruturo wrote: post #145
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The USA is in a position to shutdown all the technological infrastructure of Europe (AWS, Google, Facebook, Azure, ...) and to openly spy its citizens OK, and what can we do about that? We build our own successful cars, we build our own successful planes but it seems like when it comes to building highly scalable world dominating software we are powerless even though our universities churn out tons of talented CS en…

We pay devs worse because software is a complete aftertought, and the guys who produce it therefore are not seen as adding much value, if any. Meanwhile, the "software is eating the world" memo is almost 10 years old yet nobody this side of the pond got it. Fix this mindset (good luck!), which is the real issue, and dev wages will correct themselves too.

I never felt I was earning worse than on US, while enjoying my 30 days vacations, home office, unemployment support, health insurance and having a privileged life above many of my friends in "regular" (non-IT related) jobs.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#156

Post by zzzcpan »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #119
beagle3 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Backup works android->android and iOS->iOS but not if you want to cross the lines; guess you don’t care about that... but: If you use Google’s backup for WhatsApp, it is NOT encrypted. Your local backup IS encrypted. It’s not your data - you can’t have it except through the app. But google can (and does) have that data for likely 95% of android WhatsApp users; E2E with this state of affairs is not very useful. (I ass…

Yeah the backup is really bad... WhatsApp put so much effort into the E2E encryption and then just dumped the backups on Google. It was all just window dressing. I bet this is also why the intelligence agencies aren't pounding on them for having E2E encryption, obviously Google is an open book to them. And Google has access to all your history for their own purposes. Of course you can choose to turn off the backups,…

The idea of end-to-end encryption is just too broken. You always need to make sure that the implementation of the idea isn't controlled by the vendor from which it is supposed to protect you. But it is pretty much never the case, all the WhatsApps, Signals, etc. control implementations, updates and openly fight against attempts to decentralize or weaken that control, making sure that ultimately they are the ones deciding whether they get access to your data or not. At best it's just acts as a regular encryption with the vendor.

And while there is definitely no hope for binary blob consumer software to ever have real end-to-end encryption, there is hope that it could happen for open source software, distribution of which is not controlled by software vendors with many competing parties that package and ship it and an incentive not to sneak anything in because of that.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#157

Post by tgragnato »

Hokusai wrote: post #58

This is part of a broader problem. Many "apps" from WhatsApp to Zoom are treated as public spaces by citizens. But, legally the app-space is closer to a private space. This creates a mismatch between reality and expectations. (Zuckerberg can delete his chat history and you could not until Europe passed legislation forcing Facebook to do so.) I suffered the "Windows only" of gubernamental applications that excluded Li…

> open standards

Meh, a friend recently sent me this study from the parliament: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/6487... .

There is not much consensus regarding open standards, and the first plan of action would appear to be "a European firewall" (quickly renamed to the cloud for obvious reasons). So there will probably be some action, but I don't think it will be what many hope for. We Europeans may end up with a more closed, albeit more local, network.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#158

Post by morsch »

m_mueller wrote: post #128
vinay427 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't actually use Bluetooth. When you scan the QR code your browser pairs with your phone and messages are relayed back through WhatsApp servers between the two, so as long as both have an internet connection it should work regardless of where they are.

gotta repair every day though, from what I remember

Works like a charm for me. I can't even remember when I paired this browser. Must have been months ago.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#159

Post by im3w1l »

captainmuon wrote: post #87
rapsey wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> German officials relationship to WhatsApp is a bit silly, I find HN hivemind relationship to these apps quite silly. A government should never entrust any information to a third party it has zero control over. An individual consumer and a government employee working with classified information have vastly different responsibilities. > I always wonder what their conrete worry or attack scenario is The security of th…

It's not clear from the article, but the debate in Germany is about local offices using WhatsApp to interact with citizens. Like people asking about garbage collection dates, or informing about school closings. Things you might as well post on a wall or send with a postcard. Anything remotely sensitve, like getting a certificate of residence, has to be done in person anyway. You're right when it comes to government o…

Many people on HN say over and over that Facebook is a private company and they can ban you whenever they want for any or no reason.

A company that behaves this way cannot be trusted of course. If I get banned I cannot know about closed schools and garbage collection dates? And with no way to appeal or get redress. Of course completely unacceptable.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#160

Post by jacquesm »

Arnt wrote: post #96
jacquesm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure there were but not on mine and that's just fine by me. The last thing I need in my life is Mark Zuckerberg reading over my shoulder.

As I've heard it, the alternative that drove the first hundred million users was the telco reading over your shoulder and/or randomly dropping your messages on the floor. Whatsapp grew big with customers of telcos like Vodafone, which may be less capable than Mark Zuckerberg's snoopshop but I wouldn't bet on their being nicer. See https://toroid.org/vodafone-smtp-mitm for example.

I have less of a problem with EU telcos than with American multinationals.
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