31–40 of 192 posts
Given how WhatsApp is the de-facto way to communicate outside of the West and China, these security/data-handling "weaknesses" are most likely a feature, not a bug. An absolute bonanza for the certain intelligence services. Remember, kids: End to end encryption is useless if the "ends" are fully controlled by an (untrustworthy) third party.
you probably mean outside of the USA, it's huge in Europe/UK
(which doesn't contradict your main point)
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Without open source, end to end encryption is useless. It's not hard to hide a piece of code that defeats the encryption in closed source code.
iMessage is end to end encrypted. Although Apple says it secure and the courts and FBI seem to not be able to get it in, it is still closed source.
If I were Evil-Tim-Cook, I'd have a deal with the FBI (and other agencies) where I'd hand over some user's data, in return for them keeping that secret and occasionally very publicly taking Apple to court demanding they expose a specific user and intentionally losing - to bolster Apple's privacy reputation.
Given how WhatsApp is the de-facto way to communicate outside of the West and China, these security/data-handling "weaknesses" are most likely a feature, not a bug. An absolute bonanza for the certain intelligence services. Remember, kids: End to end encryption is useless if the "ends" are fully controlled by an (untrustworthy) third party.
Also makes me wonder about Google's change wrt android security patches - under the guise of "making it easier for OEMs" by moving to quarterly is actually just so that Paragon and other nation state spyware has access to the vulnerabilities for at least 4 months before they get patched.
What a trash company Meta has consistently been. From enabling genocide in Myanmar, to interfering with elections, to giving user data to third parties in violation of its own daya policies, to straight up weird stuff like pirating/torrening books to train their steaming pile of garbage called llama, to having sex chatbots be weird to children. And then there is the even weirder decisions of zuck, the biggest loser o…
All Meta guys develop a conscience after leaving Meta.
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Facebook doesn't give me a straight answer, when I ask them questions about their policies, even when my questions aren't answered by their policies. The job of the privacy team within Facebook is not privacy: it's reducing liability.
You obviously do not or have never worked there.
I don't believe they've lied to me – I'm not so uncharitable as to assume their incorrect "it's written in the policy!" claims were deliberate lies –, but they're certainly not forthcoming.
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iMessage is end to end encrypted. Although Apple says it secure and the courts and FBI seem to not be able to get it in, it is still closed source.
I can't tell if I'm being paranoid or just realistic, when I suspect that FBI/Apple fights over decrypting/unlocking iPhones or iMessage are just part of Apple's security theater. If I were Evil-Tim-Cook, I'd have a deal with the FBI (and other agencies) where I'd hand over some user's data, in return for them keeping that secret and occasionally very publicly taking Apple to court demanding they expose a specific us…
The FBI wants its investigations to go to court and lead to convictions. Any evidence gained in this way would be exposed as coming form Apple; notwithstanding parallel construction:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
As for other agencies, I'm sure many have exploits to attack these devices and get spyware on them, and so may not need Apple's assistance.
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Messages are e2e and WA doesn't have access to them. We're talking about the metadata here. From the article: > including contact information, IP addresses and profile photos I can confirm this, I used to work at WhatsApp.
We don't really know that messages really are end-to-end encrypted though, do we? Is there a way to actually check that the messages in transit are encrypted in a way that only the other end can decrypt them? If not, we have to take Meta's word for it, which frankly doesn't carry much weight.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
iMessage is end to end encrypted. Although Apple says it secure and the courts and FBI seem to not be able to get it in, it is still closed source.
I can't tell if I'm being paranoid or just realistic, when I suspect that FBI/Apple fights over decrypting/unlocking iPhones or iMessage are just part of Apple's security theater. If I were Evil-Tim-Cook, I'd have a deal with the FBI (and other agencies) where I'd hand over some user's data, in return for them keeping that secret and occasionally very publicly taking Apple to court demanding they expose a specific us…
For instance, if someone shared something incriminating in a group chat and got arrested, and that info was only shared in the group chat, they'd have to silence everyone in that group chat to ensure that the channel still seemed secure. I don't think at least our government is that competent or careful.
But also, people wayyyy overhype how much apple tries to come off as privacy-forward. They sell ads and don't even allow you to deny apps access to the internet, and for the most part their phone security seems more focused on denying you control over your own phone rather than denying a third party access to it. I think they just don't want the hassle of complying with warrants. Stuff like pegasus would only be so easy to sell if you couldn't lean on the company to gain access, and I think it'd be difficult for hundreds of countries to conspire to obscure legal pressure. Finally Apple generally has little to gain from reading your data, unlike other tech giants with perverse incentives.
Of course this is all speculation, but I do trust imessages much more than I trust anything coming out of meta, and most of what comes out of google.