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E2E encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after 8 May

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Re: E2E encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after 8 May

#31

Post by GuB-42 »

dcliu wrote: post #9

On the other hand Messenger has moved to only supporting e2ee chats, wonder why the difference.

To me, Instagram is a public platform at its core, where people publish things for the whole world to see. Private messages are just a secondary feature. It is like having a conversation in a restaurant, where the guy at the next table can listen to everything, but usually doesn't. Good enough for planning a surprise party, not for truly sensitive information. Kind of like private messages in Reddit, Discord, etc... a convenient feature, but don't expect real privacy.

Messenger has a higher expectation of privacy, Facebook is more at the "group of friends" level. While Instagram is a public restaurant, Facebook is more like a house party. WhatsApp has the highest expectation of privacy as it is designed for private, often one-to-one conversations first.

Re: E2E encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after 8 May

#32

Post by stephbook »

youknownothing wrote: post #27
nunobrito wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars nowadays are packed with microphones and permanently connected to the internet on daily basis so that drivers can have remote assistance when the car breaks once every 5 years or so.

And also so employees of said companies can spy on drivers and make fun of them: https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sens...

Which just shows that consumers don't care. Tesla's camera surveillance wasn't exactly secret.

Re: E2E encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after 8 May

#33

Post by gmerc »

dngray wrote: post #26
gmerc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was for plausible deniability because of regulatory scrutiny. Regulator's dead now, so now there's no downside and only upsides to spying on your users.

They never did this for user privacy, and yes I think you're spot on. This was just to remove liability. Now it just costs them the data and development cost to maintain. Any remaining problems they'll throw some crappy AI moderator at to fix.

Not hard to be right about this when you worked there at the time ;)

Re: E2E encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after 8 May

#34

Post by plagiarist »

treesknees wrote: post #5

It could be a move to have parity with TikTok, where they claim it’s for safety reasons. I’ve been seeing advertisements for Instagram touting their child/teen protection features. Seems like they’re really trying to beat the allegations that Instagram is bad for children’s health. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47241817

It certainly is unsafe for their AI training corpus. Win / win if they can also lie about protecting children as a motivation.

Re: E2E encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after 8 May

#35

Post by maqp »

treesknees wrote: post #5

It could be a move to have parity with TikTok, where they claim it’s for safety reasons. I’ve been seeing advertisements for Instagram touting their child/teen protection features. Seems like they’re really trying to beat the allegations that Instagram is bad for children’s health. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47241817

The sad part is, Instagram is exceptionally damaging to kids for a disjoint set of reasons.

Re: E2E encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after 8 May

#36

Post by everdrive »

There's a general trend right now against privacy and in a more general sense against freedom. More and more companies are on board with it. I'm not sure if anyone in HN has any useful advice in this regard. I feel like I don't know what to do about the internet for the next 5-10 years. Does this particular measure matter very much? No, but it's another brick in the wall.

Re: E2E encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after 8 May

#37

Post by Bender »

Never rely on a platform used by the masses to perform E2EE. It is far too easy to strip away E2EE for targeted users without their knowledge as they maintain the server and client code. This advise is to protect from corporations gobbling up and ultimately leaking sensitive data. Spooks can target the device itself via debug access for nation state level threats.

Consider instead using a code word or phrase to move sensitive conversations to something self hosted such as jabber using OMEMO XEP-0384 and XEP-0373 OpenPGP for XMPP and SASL SCRAM. OMEMO is an implementation of the Signal protocol on top of the XMPP protocol.

e.g. "_Expletive_! I stubbed my toe!" other-person: "lol geezer watch where you are walking." conversation quietly and temporarily moves to the pre-shared self-hosted Jabber server. Temporarily because going dark can draw attention. Feed the big chat platform boring garbage and misdirection.

Re: E2E encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after 8 May

#38

Post by infinitewars »

gmerc wrote: post #21
garbawarb wrote: post #3

When Meta starting introducing E2E messaging it was a huge push. I wonder why they're doing away with it.

It was for plausible deniability because of regulatory scrutiny. Regulator's dead now, so now there's no downside and only upsides to spying on your users.

Palantir

Re: E2E encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after 8 May

#39

Post by Sayrus »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #28
Sayrus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing this one. But at least for EU, the eCall system requires external communication to be disabled until activated during serious accident. It cannot be used for tracking the vehicle in real-time. Some parts of the legislation ( https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32... ): > 2. The personal data processed pursuant to this Regulation shall only be used for the purpose of handling the e…

This is such misdirection. Your car if new enough, IS reporting its diagnostics including GPS via cell. All the time. This isn’t exactly personally identifiable so they get away with it just fine. This is unrelated to the microphones and assistance systems.

Which is exactly my point. Cars are reporting on you, but tying that to remote assistance is disingenuous.

Re: E2E encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after 8 May

#40

Post by odo1242 »

some_furry wrote: post #2

I wonder if this is the start of a trend or just a one-off?

Probably a one off? Instagram’s e2ee was opt-in from the start- and meanwhile Facebook Messenger is now “e2ee for everyone” and none of this is affecting the main e2ee messaging apps people use - WhatsApp, Signal, and iMessage
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