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TikTok will not introduce end-to-end encryption, saying it makes users less safe

bbc.com

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Re: TikTok will not introduce end-to-end encryption, saying it makes users less safe

#401

Post by hogwasher »

pixl97 wrote: post #359
smugglerFlynn wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as long as there are relatively good options of apps that do have privacy (and I think there are) Once you have enormous network effect like TikTok has, you don't really have any free selection of alternative apps. You are free to use one, but you will be the only sad user over there. Regulations are needed that would force large platforms like TikTok and Instagram to enable federation, opening them up to actual co…

>Regulations are needed Lolololol. No, not regulations. Regulators. With the people we currently have voted into office in the US the only regulations we are going to get are ones saying Sam and Peter must look at everything you do all the time. Until we stop voting for more authoritarianism, expect ever increasing amounts of authoritarianism.

I think it was clear what they meant.

Re: TikTok will not introduce end-to-end encryption, saying it makes users less safe

#402

Post by hogwasher »

michaelmior wrote: post #214
shakna wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The receiver has a proven and signed bundle, that they can upload to the abuse report. So the evidence has even stronger weight. They can already decrypt the message, they can still report it.

Yes, but this leaves the only way to identify this behavior as by reporting from a minor. I'm not saying I trust TikTok to only do good things with access to DMs, but I think it's a fair argument in this scenario to say that a platform has a better opportunity to protect minors if messages aren't encrypted. I'm not saying no E2E messaging apps should exist, but maybe it doesn't need to for minors in social media apps…

Are you suggesting all messaged photos should be scanned, and potentially viewed by humans, in case it depicts a nude minor? Because no matter how you do that, that would result in false positives, and either unfair auto-bans and erroneous reports to law enforcement (so no human views the images), or human employees viewing other adults' consensual nudes that were meant to be private. Or it would result in adult employees viewing nudes sent from one minor to another minor, which would also be a major breach of those minors' privacy.

There is a program whereby police can generate hashes based on CSAM images, and then those hashes can be automatically compared against the hashes of uploaded photos on websites, so as to identify known CSAM images without any investigator having to actually view the CSAM and further infringe on the victim's privacy. But that only works vs. already known images, and can be done automatically whenever an image is uploaded, prior to encryption. The encryption doesn't prevent it.

Point being, disallowing encryption sacrifices a lot, while potentially not even being that useful for catching child abusers in practice.

I'm sure some offenders could be caught this way, but it would also cause so many problems itself.

Re: TikTok will not introduce end-to-end encryption, saying it makes users less safe

#403

Post by da_chicken »

acuozzo wrote: post #94
da_chicken wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there should be a human operator manually gatekeeping every individual request to connect with another endpoint? It's a good thing those human operators couldn't listen in to whichever conversation they wanted.

Human operators were not required of The Bell Telephone Company by law. Bell switched to mechanical switching stations as soon as doing so was economically advantageous. (Reconsider my post. I'm arguing for no regulation.)

You're arguing for no regulation and your example is one of the most oppressive and stifling monopolies in American history?

Re: TikTok will not introduce end-to-end encryption, saying it makes users less safe

#404

Post by eru »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #119
eru wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents are already allowed to restrict their children access to 'dangerous' things like open computers or knives.

I don't think debazel was saying that children should have been banned from owning computers for the benefit of the children. He was saying that children should have been banned from owning computers so that the government would have no excuse to regulate what's allowed on computers.

Well, it didn't work for alcohol and tobacco: in addition to being banned for children in many jurisdictions they are still heavily regulated.

Re: TikTok will not introduce end-to-end encryption, saying it makes users less safe

#405

Post by Jotalea »

I don't see the issue with this. tiktok DMs were made for sharing videos directly to someone, and reacting to those, not as a primary chatting method.

if you think otherwise, I'd like you to explain why is the experience optimized for video sharing, yet the text messages are unoptimized.

Re: TikTok will not introduce end-to-end encryption, saying it makes users less safe

#406

Post by londons_explore »

AlexandrB wrote: post #390
foobarchu wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This viewpoint isn't a slippery slope, it's a runaway train. "You moved into a neighborhood with lead pipes? That's on you, should have done more research" "Your vitamins contained undisclosed allergens? You're an adult, and it didn't say it DIDN'T contain those" "Passwords stolen because your provider stored them in plaintext? They never claimed to store them securely, so it's really on you"

Legislating that everyone must always be safe regardless of what app they use is a one-way ticket to walled gardens for everything. This kind of safety is the rationale behind things like secure boot, Apple's App Store, and remote attestation. Also consider what this means for open source. No hobbyist can ship an IM app if they don't go all the way and E2E encrypt (and security audit) the damn thing. The barriers of…

Doesn't have to be a law. Can just be standard engineering practice.

Websockets for example are always encrypted (not e2e). That means anyone who implements a chess game over websockets gets encryption at no extra effort.

We just need e2e to be just as easy. For example maybe imagine a new type of unicode which is encrypted. Your application just deals with 'unicode' strings and the OS handles encryption and decryption for you, including if you send those strings over the network to others.

Re: TikTok will not introduce end-to-end encryption, saying it makes users less safe

#407

Post by NoahZuniga »

danlitt wrote: post #326
InsomniacL wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would it be a fair argument to say the police have a better opportunity to prevent crimes if they can enter your house without a warrant? Police can access your home with a warrant. Police cannot access your E2EE DMs with a warrant.

Not answering my question! > Police cannot access your E2EE DMs with a warrant. They can and do, regularly. What they can't do is prevent you from deleting your DMs if you know you're under investigation and likely to be caught. But refusing to give up encryption keys and supiciously empty chat histories with a valid warrant is very good evidence of a crime in itself. They also can't prevent you from flushing drugs d…

> What they can't do is prevent you from deleting your DMs if you know you're under investigation and likely to be caught

If you are pretty confident your under investigation then this is might be Obstruction of Justice and that's pretty illegal.

Re: TikTok will not introduce end-to-end encryption, saying it makes users less safe

#408

Post by smugglerFlynn »

beeflet wrote: post #371
smugglerFlynn wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as long as there are relatively good options of apps that do have privacy (and I think there are) Once you have enormous network effect like TikTok has, you don't really have any free selection of alternative apps. You are free to use one, but you will be the only sad user over there. Regulations are needed that would force large platforms like TikTok and Instagram to enable federation, opening them up to actual co…

federation would never work. How would it work here? Either you are forcing tiktok to give pageviews to federations of spam, or you are letting tiktok decide which federations to work with, which essentially results in no federation.

Nobody stops spammers from creating websites, but we still have search engines and web. Nobody stops spammers from sending emails, but we still use SMTP.

It is just a matter of tools we build to rank and filter content. With open protocols platforms can actually compete on antispam tools, among other features.

Re: TikTok will not introduce end-to-end encryption, saying it makes users less safe

#409

Post by throw0101c »

hogwasher wrote: post #399
johnisgood wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I think because of all the handholding we are left worse off.

Most people couldn't tell you how their car works, at least not enough to fix it. Is that handholding, too? People can't be knowledgable about everything. There's just too much information in the world, and too many different skills that could be learned, and not enough time. A carpenter can rely on power tools without understanding fully how the tools work, and it's fine, as long as the tools are made to safe standa…

> Most people couldn't tell you how their car works […]

Most people couldn't tell you how their furnace or water heater works, or flush toilet (siphonic effect).

Re: TikTok will not introduce end-to-end encryption, saying it makes users less safe

#410

Post by smugglerFlynn »

pixl97 wrote: post #359
smugglerFlynn wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as long as there are relatively good options of apps that do have privacy (and I think there are) Once you have enormous network effect like TikTok has, you don't really have any free selection of alternative apps. You are free to use one, but you will be the only sad user over there. Regulations are needed that would force large platforms like TikTok and Instagram to enable federation, opening them up to actual co…

>Regulations are needed Lolololol. No, not regulations. Regulators. With the people we currently have voted into office in the US the only regulations we are going to get are ones saying Sam and Peter must look at everything you do all the time. Until we stop voting for more authoritarianism, expect ever increasing amounts of authoritarianism.

I would argue the only thing that does stop current situation from snowballing into something much worse are pre-existing institutions and regulations.

That's also why dismantling and challenging these is often the very first priority for authoritarian actors.

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