To someone new to crypto, how do companies like WhatsApp implement their end-to-end encryption? Where are keys generated and how are they persisted in a way that allows messages to be re-read no matter what device users are running the app from but doesn't allow governments any chance at access to the keys?
Supreme Court to hear petition seeking ban on WhatsApp
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Re: Supreme Court to hear petition seeking ban on WhatsApp
#32It struck me as I was reading this, the entire reason this is even a possible thing is the advent of the "App Store" If users obtained thier software elsewhere, the system could still "ban" it, but people would still obtain it. With the app stores, it becomes fairly easy for a government to unilaterally ban a piece of software.
They could still obtain it, but the government could still mandate that local ISPs and telcos block connectivity to it. This is like what they do when they ban websites.
They couldn’t if users used a federated protocol. You can spin up XMPP servers faster than they can block them.
Re: Supreme Court to hear petition seeking ban on WhatsApp
#33To someone new to crypto, how do companies like WhatsApp implement their end-to-end encryption? Where are keys generated and how are they persisted in a way that allows messages to be re-read no matter what device users are running the app from but doesn't allow governments any chance at access to the keys?
WhatsApp in particular only allows you to receive messages on one device. WhatsApp web accesses the messages from your phone.
Re: Supreme Court to hear petition seeking ban on WhatsApp
#34Just to be clear this is the Indian Supreme Court. While it is from the indiatimes.com english language news outfit, I would assume the majority of readers on HN are not indian. Context here is important, as some may not read the article unfortunately, and even then, it isn't immeadiately clear.
Re: Supreme Court to hear petition seeking ban on WhatsApp
#35Every time you hear about something like this or read an article about something like this you have to slow down for a moment and realize that we brought this on ourselves. The original intent of the internet was peer to peer , not global centralized services that we all connect to. There is no technical reason why something like whatsapp can't be peer-to-peer. Choosing for a centralized service is implicitly choosin…
Serious question: how would you decentralize something like a messaging app? Don't you need /something/ to facilitate routing? Or do you use some kind of public-private key encryption on a blockchain? But then how do you get someone's public key if they're offline? And why would you want to store a blockchain of everyone's encrypted messages? To get around that, you'd end up with some centralized server storing the whole blockchain and you only receiving yours? But then you're back at the problem Bitcoin has: You want a decentralized blockchain, but people don't want to store 73,745 megabytes[0] of other people's transactions they don't care about. Bittorrent's DHT system still relies on a few "kickstart" servers to send you a list of peers who can send you a list of peers...
[0]: https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size (26 Jun 2016, 0519 UTC)
Re: Supreme Court to hear petition seeking ban on WhatsApp
#36Title is terribly missing which country you're talking about. Most here would assume the US, in which case the title would have more audience. So while I understand the intent is to have more audience, the integrity of communication is lost.
It's obvious from the domain (timesofindia.indiatimes.com).
Not necessarily. A lot of times I'll see random US-related news posted by UK sites.
Re: Supreme Court to hear petition seeking ban on WhatsApp
#37Just to be clear this is the Indian Supreme Court . While it is from the indiatimes.com english language news outfit, I would assume the majority of readers on HN are not indian. Context here is important, as some may not read the article unfortunately, and even then, it isn't immeadiately clear.
Re: Supreme Court to hear petition seeking ban on WhatsApp
#38Mass surveillance does not stop terrorism effectively.
Bruce Schneier wrote a book called Data and Goliath and touches on the subject a bit. Simply to many false positives are detected.
But how will governments decrypt communications you say?
Simple, they hack the devices performing the communication, if they are important enough. They can then get the key if needed. Encryption forces governments to do targeted surveillance.
This isn't just about whats app, it's about all crypto systems. Without privacy, you have no liberty.
Re: Supreme Court to hear petition seeking ban on WhatsApp
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh! I didn't realize it worked that way. So they can tell Apple to take something off their App Store because Apple has presence in their country? Would app stores be immune if their company doesn't have a presence in a country?
App stores may not be legally required to take it down as they're outside the jurisdiction... but a threat to block the app store entirely in the country is probably enough to get them to budge.
Blocking an entire app store is so consumer-unfriendly--is there a chance of that happening in a reasonable country?
Re: Supreme Court to hear petition seeking ban on WhatsApp
#40Mass surveillance does not stop terrorism effectively. Bruce Schneier wrote a book called Data and Goliath and touches on the subject a bit. Simply to many false positives are detected. But how will governments decrypt communications you say? Simple, they hack the devices performing the communication, if they are important enough. They can then get the key if needed. Encryption forces governments to do targeted surve…
There's no "d" – it's Bruce Schneier.