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Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

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Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#171

Post by SecretDreams »

simpaticoder wrote: post #162
lordofgibbons wrote: post #147

> WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption, meaning a service provider in the middle can’t read a message. I wish this meme that "whatsapp is secure because it uses e2e encryption" would die. Why does it matter if the messages are e2e encrypted if the messages are managed on the two ends of the channel by a closed source binary that does who-knows-what. The whatsapp app itself sees the clear text message. What it does wit…

I think the real reason people don't take supply chain endpoint security seriously is that it too quickly regresses to distrust of the OS and hardware. At that point you abandon smartphones entirely.

> At that point you abandon smartphones entirely.

Right into my veins

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#172

Post by lurk2 »

perihelions wrote: post #100
Saris wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read around their points, it sounds like they track general location, log group messages, and provide specific information on request to a government.

Meta can also just lie about it. If they were secretly granting backdoor root access to some NSA spooks, like Microsoft did with PRISM or AT&T did with 641A, most likely no one would find out, so, there'd be zero actual downside to simply lying.

> like Microsoft did with PRISM or AT&T did with 641A, most likely no one would find out

People did find out.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#173

Post by tguvot »

Macha wrote: post #144
nine_k wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The diaspora is a very self-filtered subset though. Say, the Russian diaspora overwhelmingly opposes the Russia's aggression in Ukraine, while the population within Russia is mostly indifferent enough, and often supports it. (Note that all the Russian troops in Ukraine are not taken by military draft, but went to war voluntarily, for a generous fee, or in exchange for release from prison.)

Did they release the conscripts from 2023? Or are you assuming they've all died by now? It's true that new soldiers are not conscripts, but I'd assume there's still some survivors from the earlier mobilisation and as far as I know once you're in, you're in, until death, incapacity or the war ending.

as this is not war, conscripts aren't supposed to be sent to battle (there were a few cases when it did happen).

but what happens, it's that conscripts are convinced/forced to sign contracts to serve in army, and in this they are sent to face ukrainian drones.

those that were mobilized, iirc not released.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#174

Post by dragonwriter »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #102
Aloisius wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What puppet did the US install?

They’re being dramatic. We installed the Shah [EDIT: as an autocrat] with the ‘53 coup [1]. That was our original sin. But the Islamic Republic wasn’t an American creation. Neither was Saddam’s Iraq or the Mujahideen or Al Qaeda. We variously facilitated, opposed and ignored these elements, mostly the last. Ignoring the Soviet history in the region, together with the fact that Iranians aren’t automatons, but human be…

> But the Islamic Republic wasn’t an American creation. Neither was Saddam’s Iraq

Saddam's Iraq was, though; Saddam's rise to power in Iraq was backed actively by the US because he was seen as a useful anti-Communist, and once in power he was backed by the US government (to the point of rushing Donald Rumsfeld out as Reagan's special envoy to assure both Saddam and the world of our support for him after he used chemical weapons) in its long war of aggression against Iran in the 1980s.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#175

Post by JumpCrisscross »

v5v3 wrote: post #166
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Iranian Regime has strong backing from Brics and others The BRICS meme from a security standpoint is hollower than the financial one. Russia and China have no interest (the former, ability) in getting enmeshed in another Anglo-Iranian war. Most of the oil travelling through the Strait of Hormuz goes to Chinese refineries; they really don’t want this to escalate. Both would probably make the occupation phase painful…

Not true. Chinese planes with transponders being turned off are landing in Iran with unknown Cargo on board. (Reported across the news). Iran is supplying Russia with Drones for Ukraine so strategic partner. Russia recently lost Syria as an ally with the change in government, they will not want to lose Iran to the USA too. If the West can back Ukraine to the level they have done, then no different for Iran's friends…

Everything you’re describing fits prolonging a guerilla conflict. That is, planning for post collapse influence.

There is really only one thing Iran would sell its soul for right now, and it’s Russian or Chinese troops announcing that they’ve stationed themselves at Fordo. (Thereby turning an attack on the regime’s nuclear ambitions into an attack on a nuclear state.)

> If the West can back Ukraine to the level they have done, then no different for Iran's friends to do the same

Excluding China, orders of magnitude of differences in capability.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#176

Post by alephnerd »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #97
mandevil wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afghanistan was in the middle of a semi-active civil war when the US joined the fray, and by providing large scale air support to Northern Alliance troops on the ground, the situation changed abruptly. Iraq involved multiple US divisions of troops, which took months to get into position to launch a large scale ground invasion. Libya was in the middle of a very active civil war when the US started Operation Odyssey Da…

> All of those cases involved a whole lot of troops on the ground, which is something that I see as notably missing from any plans discussed so far Oh absolutely. I compared it to Kabul and Baghdad (and not Libya) for a reason. There is not a mobilised resistance in Iran. The lack of boots-on-the-ground plans is why I don’t see us teetering towards Iraq 2.0, but instead the U.S. eventually using bunker busters at For…

^ This

There will be no nation building component. Israeli leadership has no interest, nor does American leadership. And the Gulf States, Turkiye, Russia and China lack the capacity and/or manpower.

Sadly, I feel Iran will most likely teeter into a Libya or Myanmar style Civil War with the Army, IRGC, Basij, and local police at each others throats in the heartland, and ancillary regions like Iranian Azerbaijan, Iranian Kurdistan, Khuzestan+Ilam, and significant portions of Balochistan and Khorasan becoming de facto autonomous and meddled in by regional powers.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#177

Post by MitPitt »

ajross wrote: post #168
lordofgibbons wrote: post #147

> WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption, meaning a service provider in the middle can’t read a message. I wish this meme that "whatsapp is secure because it uses e2e encryption" would die. Why does it matter if the messages are e2e encrypted if the messages are managed on the two ends of the channel by a closed source binary that does who-knows-what. The whatsapp app itself sees the clear text message. What it does wit…

> Why does it matter if the messages are e2e encrypted if the messages are managed on the two ends of the channel by a closed source binary that does who-knows-what. Would you prefer your dissident messages be read by Meta Corporation or the Islamic Republic of Iran? That's the difference. No, there's no technical difference in the sense that neither solution can be verified to be probably secure vs. third party insp…

> read by Meta Corporation or

Neither please! Corpos can obviously sell out or be pressured into giving out info to all sorts of agencies

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#178

Post by stefan_ »

simpaticoder wrote: post #162
lordofgibbons wrote: post #147

> WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption, meaning a service provider in the middle can’t read a message. I wish this meme that "whatsapp is secure because it uses e2e encryption" would die. Why does it matter if the messages are e2e encrypted if the messages are managed on the two ends of the channel by a closed source binary that does who-knows-what. The whatsapp app itself sees the clear text message. What it does wit…

I think the real reason people don't take supply chain endpoint security seriously is that it too quickly regresses to distrust of the OS and hardware. At that point you abandon smartphones entirely.

Thats the paranoid answer. The much simpler answer is that you don't maintain the software on it; updates are done silently by whatever the hardware vendor decides passes their muster (or motive).

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#179

Post by krisoft »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #163
lenerdenator wrote: post #152

All of this to avoid saying "We'd be fine with you existing within your pre-1967 borders."

Do you see an out for Khamenei et al ? They can’t credibly dismantle their nuclear deterrent and expect to keep their heads. Israel and America cannot accept it, particularly now that its conventional defences have been shown ineffective. The classic approach, airlifting the Ayatollah to a dacha in Moscow while the IRGC saves face and plots a forever path to new elections, falls apart when you consider how Iran’s int…

> They can’t credibly dismantle their nuclear deterrent

Mainly because they don’t have one and never had one. Hard to dismantle something you don’t have. Even harder to do so credibly.

They had programs to obtain a nuclear deterrent. They can dismantle those programs. But they never had the actual nuclear deterrent itself.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#180

Post by ngruhn »

platevoltage wrote: post #135
msgodel wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are we toppling all these foreign governments and creating instability that breads terrorism in places that otherwise have nothing to do with us? This seems so exceptionally counter productive.

I'm willing to bet that the majority of Americans can't connect the dots between the Iraq War and the creation of ISIS.

I bet. The middle east is more complicated than quantum mechanics. There are like gazillions of factions, local and foreign. You would think you can roughly group them into Israel+US, Russia, Shia, Sunni. They surely all hate each other. But there are still constantly shifting alliances. At some point Iran (Shia?) was funding ISIS (Sunni?) only to later team up with the US and Israel to fight them. Sometimes all these islamist groups have a dude who looks like the leader but it's actually the guy two levels down who is the real puppet master. And everybody is known under at least three different names all of which are Al-something. I tried to read a book on this but you become this manic investigation board meme guy.
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