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British intelligence able to read and flag private Snapchat messages

reuters.com

31–40 of 125 posts

Re: British intelligence able to read and flag private Snapchat messages

#31
So these people do not want to talk about and are generally unable to provide examples of their surveillance stopping an actual threat because "they do not want to give away their capabilities", but when they get shown up for being absolute fools by taking an obvious joke seriously, they have no problem starting noisy court proceedings? They were likely just so giddy that they finally got something, they didn't stop to think whether it was real, suing that kid in red-faced anger and embarrassment afterwards.

These fuckups should be paid for out of their budget.

Re: British intelligence able to read and flag private Snapchat messages

#32
post #23
post #18

This is why even if you aren't doing anything wrong, you should always use E2E encrypted communication.

> even if you aren't doing anything wrong I mean... joking about bomb threats at an airport is not "not doing anything wrong". Should we throw the person in prison for it? No, of course not. Is it a dumb thing to do? I think so. Very dumb. > you should always use E2E encrypted communication I agree with that.

> I mean... joking about bomb threats at an airport is not "not doing anything wrong".

This isn't just Snapchat surveillance. Most of the people joking about "bombs" aren't at the airport. If they knew he both joked, and was currently at the airport, then the surveillance has to be much more pervasive somehow.

Re: British intelligence able to read and flag private Snapchat messages

#34
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even if you aren't doing anything wrong I mean... joking about bomb threats at an airport is not "not doing anything wrong". Should we throw the person in prison for it? No, of course not. Is it a dumb thing to do? I think so. Very dumb. > you should always use E2E encrypted communication I agree with that.

> I mean... joking about bomb threats at an airport is not "not doing anything wrong". in a private message to friends? it most definitely is. also what does airports have to do with anything? are you implying its okay to do if the target is a rural farmhouse, but not an airport?

a farmhouse is a funny thing to jump to as an example.

s/farmhouse/school/ and holy hell will rain down upon you. the zero tolerance at schools has become ridiculous.

Re: British intelligence able to read and flag private Snapchat messages

#35
post #22

One needs to ask themselves, what is more likely? 1. The /feds/ broke Snapschat's end to end encryption and they're monitoring for all traffic with designated stopwords, or... 2. One of his friends reported him, one way or another, or.. 3. Snapchat's end to end encryption is... not. I can't find any definitive statement that the chat messages themselves are E2EE, only that photos and videos are encrypted and the key…

2. ... friends of friends, or somebody posted his "joke" to a platform which GCHQ does real-time monitoring of, or ...

4. Compromised endpoint(s).

(I also somewhat favor your #3.)

Re: British intelligence able to read and flag private Snapchat messages

#36
post #16

It's an /assumption/ that British intelligence able to read and flag private Snapchat messages, as the article literally states, "The trial did not make clear how the British services managed to have access to Verma's private messages, the judge stressed." The truth is, it isn't public knowledge how this unfolded and anything suggesting otherwise is conjecture. Also, this post doesn't' reflect the article title, "Spa…

If we're speculating, a much more likely explanation is that Snapchat moderation teams monitor certain words in certain areas, flagging for example any message containing "bomb" sent from an airport. This is arguably even creepier than government surveillance, since it implies Snapchat employees are looking at the content of private chats and the user may never know.

[dead]

Re: British intelligence able to read and flag private Snapchat messages

#39
post #22

One needs to ask themselves, what is more likely? 1. The /feds/ broke Snapschat's end to end encryption and they're monitoring for all traffic with designated stopwords, or... 2. One of his friends reported him, one way or another, or.. 3. Snapchat's end to end encryption is... not. I can't find any definitive statement that the chat messages themselves are E2EE, only that photos and videos are encrypted and the key…

[dead]

Re: British intelligence able to read and flag private Snapchat messages

#40
post #16

It's an /assumption/ that British intelligence able to read and flag private Snapchat messages, as the article literally states, "The trial did not make clear how the British services managed to have access to Verma's private messages, the judge stressed." The truth is, it isn't public knowledge how this unfolded and anything suggesting otherwise is conjecture. Also, this post doesn't' reflect the article title, "Spa…

If we're speculating, a much more likely explanation is that Snapchat moderation teams monitor certain words in certain areas, flagging for example any message containing "bomb" sent from an airport. This is arguably even creepier than government surveillance, since it implies Snapchat employees are looking at the content of private chats and the user may never know.

Might be automated, but still, a corporation controls what gets flagged.
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