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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

#191

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

ben_w wrote: post #114
rdrd wrote: post #7

I find the wordsmithery on Meta's statement the most interesting: “We do not track your *PRECISE* location, we don’t keep logs of who everyone is messaging and we do not track the *PERSONAL* messages people are sending one another," it added. “We do not provide *BULK* information to any government.”

> we don’t keep logs of who everyone is messaging Surely they must, how else are the messages… you know… available when you use the app?

IME, they're stored on device only. If you've ever moved phones this becomes painfully obvious unless you've setup backups to your personal Google Drive (native integration with app).

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

#192

Post by miki123211 »

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…

Considering how popular WhatsApp is, it's very hard to believe that there are no security researchers reverse-engineering its crypto code.

Because WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption, any backdoor must necessarily be on the client side, and all client-side code can ultimately be reverse-engineered. This makes such backdoors very tricky to implement.

With that said, while I think a "general backdoor" (one that weakens the crypto algorithms so much that all messages can ultimately be read by Meta) is super unlikely, a "vulnerability" in some image parsing library, designed and implemented by the NSA, and only used on the most interesting targets... now that's a different story.

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

#193

Post by alephnerd »

Buttons840 wrote: post #189
alephnerd wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US Director of National Intelligence The US Director of National Intelligence (Tulsi Gabbard) has a very public history of backing Assad and Iran during the Syrian Civil War, and any mention of the DNI without mentioning it's currently Tulsi Gabbard is clearly a bad faith discussion.

Is there a better representative of the US intelligence agencies than the Director of National Intelligence? Maybe a true Scotsman?

At this moment no. Most administrative and strategy positions for Intel and Foreign Service seats have remained unconfirmed. Maybe the head of the CIA - John Ratcliffe, an avowed Iran+China Hawk - but this administration is hard to read given how disjointed and domestic-driven decisionmaking is.

Furthermore, the DNI is at the lowest rung of the intel hierarchy on the Hill, as it is a post-9/11 invention, and faces inter-service competition from the CIA, FBI, and NSA.

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

#194

Post by pxc »

ajross wrote: post #186
MitPitt wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> read by Meta Corporation or Neither please! Corpos can obviously sell out or be pressured into giving out info to all sorts of agencies

That's not responsive, though. The point is there are actual human beings in a war zone under a repressive regime making decisions about software. And they aren't interested in your abstract idea about "corpos" being "pressured". They want not to be snatched by the secret police. Please.

How is this "abstract"? Corporations being pressured can directly lead to being snatched by the secret police.

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

#195

Post by Aloisius »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #146
Aloisius wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi became Shah of the Imperial State of Iran in 1941, succeeding his father after the British forced him out. I'm unsure as to how the US installed him in 1953. He had been Shah for 11 years.

> Mohammad Reza Pahlavi became Shah of the Imperial State of Iran in 1941 Sorry, you’re correct. We installed him as an autocrat in ‘53.

He already had immense power prior to the coup. At best, his autocratic power was strengthened. Calling him installed by the US is a misrepresentation.

Iran was not a British-style constitutional monarchy. The Shah was not a ceremonial position. His father ruled with even more power than he did. He was just an absentee ruler for the first part of his rule until someone tried to assassinate him.

Never mind that Prime Minister Mosaddegh had dissolved parliament and had been ruling by decree for a year also acted as an autocrat. Even his own party turned against him for abuse of power.

At best, one could argue the British installed the Shah. They are, after all, the people who made him Shah in the first place.

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

#196

Post by dragonwriter »

alephnerd wrote: post #193
Buttons840 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a better representative of the US intelligence agencies than the Director of National Intelligence? Maybe a true Scotsman?

At this moment no. Most administrative and strategy positions for Intel and Foreign Service seats have remained unconfirmed. Maybe the head of the CIA - John Ratcliffe, an avowed Iran+China Hawk - but this administration is hard to read given how disjointed and domestic-driven decisionmaking is. Furthermore, the DNI is at the lowest rung of the intel hierarchy on the Hill, as it is a post-9/11 invention, and faces in…

> Furthermore, the DNI is at the lowest rung of the intel hierarchy on the Hill, as it is a post-9/11 invention, and faces inter-service competition from the CIA, FBI, and NSA.

The DNI is by law [0] the head of the intelligence community; the role was created to separate that function from the CIA Director (formerly, "Director of Central Intelligence"), who previously was the head of the intelligence community as well as the head of one of the major constituent agencies within that community. The CIA, FBI, and NSA or components of the intelligence community, not "competitors" with the DNI.

(And all of those are executive branch positions, so not in any hierarchy "on the Hill", which is a metonym for the Legislative branch because of the location of the Capitol complex on Capitol hill.)

[0] 50 U.S. Code § 3023(b)(1) Subject to the authority, direction, and control of the President, the Director of National Intelligence shall— (1) serve as head of the intelligence community; (2) act as the principal adviser to the President, to the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council for intelligence matters related to the national security; and (3) consistent with section 1018 of the National Security Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, oversee and direct the implementation of the National Intelligence Program. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3023

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

#197

Post by tmnvix »

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…

> Would you prefer your dissident messages be read by Meta Corporation or the Islamic Republic of Iran?

I'd prefer my messages to not be available to an actor shown to be using AI to select targets for bombing campaigns.

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

#198

Post by tguvot »

Lordarminius wrote: post #27
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Iraq and Gaza was an absolute joke compared to what it would take to topple the Iranian militants, militias, and government It wouldn't be a cake walk. But America could topple the government in Tehran about as easily as it did in Baghdad or, frankly, Kabul. The problem in Iraq and Afghanistan wasn't a failure to decapitate the opposing state. It was in filling the vacuum that left.

Baghdad and Kabul had nowhere near the military capabilities of the Iranians who can close shipping lanes, sink US warships and attack military bases and oil installations in the region, in addition to devastating all the major Israeli cities. In the chaos that ensues, the Chinese and Russians would move in and take advantage. The global economy would grind to a halt and America would spiral into a depression that wo…

how the "devastating all the major israeli cities" going ? or they didn't start yet

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

#199

Post by eddythompson80 »

dataflow wrote: post #137
rdrd wrote: post #7

I find the wordsmithery on Meta's statement the most interesting: “We do not track your *PRECISE* location, we don’t keep logs of who everyone is messaging and we do not track the *PERSONAL* messages people are sending one another," it added. “We do not provide *BULK* information to any government.”

Aren't push notifications logged and used for getting people's data? This was in the news over a year ago: https://www.wired.com/story/apple-google-push-notification-s...

In general, all your personal information stored with Google or Apple or any other American company is subject to getting requested by a court order. If you listen to any of the True Crime podcasts, you'll always hear how google searches and cell tower location are always presented in a trial as evidence. People here always think they are so smart saying

> Actualllly you can't prove that it was me who made that search query.

> Actualllly you can't prove that it was me who had that cellphone around that cell tower. Could have been anybody. I could have been hacked.

Judges always allow those evidence and jury always views it as incriminating. What makes more sense, that some unknown hacker hacked into your account and googled something about the thing you're here for, or that you actually just googled it yourself?

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

#200

Post by alephnerd »

dragonwriter wrote: post #196
alephnerd wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this moment no. Most administrative and strategy positions for Intel and Foreign Service seats have remained unconfirmed. Maybe the head of the CIA - John Ratcliffe, an avowed Iran+China Hawk - but this administration is hard to read given how disjointed and domestic-driven decisionmaking is. Furthermore, the DNI is at the lowest rung of the intel hierarchy on the Hill, as it is a post-9/11 invention, and faces in…

> Furthermore, the DNI is at the lowest rung of the intel hierarchy on the Hill, as it is a post-9/11 invention, and faces inter-service competition from the CIA, FBI, and NSA. The DNI is by law [0] the head of the intelligence community; the role was created to separate that function from the CIA Director (formerly, "Director of Central Intelligence"), who previously was the head of the intelligence community as wel…

By law sure, but in action the DNI has little-to-no staffing, and the heads of the other agencies are represented in the NSC and JCS, so the DNI tends to be an afterthought.

> which is a metonym for the Legislative branch because of the location of the Capitol complex on Capitol hill.

IK. I used to work there. It is the general denonym for working in either the Executive or Legislative.

> And all of those are executive branch positions, so not in any hierarchy "on the Hill"

Strongly disagree from personal experience. Just like any organization, resourcing gives certain groups or agencies more heft and leeway than others.

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