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Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

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Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#461

Post by ben_w »

dttze wrote: post #84
Buttons840 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have been actively trying to develop a nuclear weapon program The US Director of National Intelligence testified to congress a few weeks ago that no US intelligence agency believes that Iran is developing a nuclear bomb, and that they believed Iran was at least 3 years away from having the ability to build a nuclear bomb even if they tried. What you are saying directly contradicts what US intelligence agencies have…

Not to mention the Ayatollah has had a long standing fatwa against the procurement of nuclear weapons.

Yeah, and the ten commandments in the New Testament don't give exceptions for "death penalty" and "war"*, that doesn't stop Christians from signing up for the military or even seeing a contradiction.

* on the former, NT has an example of the crowd who want to stone someone, instead being convinced to leave; and the latter NT contains the origin of the phrase "to go the extra mile", which is about helping foreign soldiers occupying your territory and ordering you to help them (Matthew 5:41)

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#462

Post by bawolff »

grafmax wrote: post #423
ivandenysov wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also about sending a message to the population (no pun intended), about uniting them against a common enemy. Dictators want people to believe that their enemy is also the enemy of the people.

The idea that Israel is trying to help the Iranian people is a falsehood. Israel is bombing residential neighborhoods. This is cynicism on the part of the Israeli government, something we should be well aware of now as they are completing the final stages of the genocide in Gaza.

Fog of war is thick right now. There is plenty of reason for iran to overstate this (to e.g. try and get a rally around the flag affect to increase regime stability). [Otoh, plenty of reason for Israel to understate. Truth is the first casualty of war]

We'll probably have to wait for the dust to settle before we have a good idea what was or wasn't bombed.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#463

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

mousethatroared wrote: post #282
whodidntante wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, is Tulsi Gabbard now considered a reliable source of intelligence ? And that it should be no one's concern about a regime that is stretched for resources yet has over a dozen very expensive facilities working on militarizing nuclear technology that also publicly and repeatedly calls for the destruction of not just Israel but also America ?

This wasn't Tulsi saying it, but the intelligence community going back to the dubbya administration. Some of us are old enough to remember. In honor of W. "fool me one, shame on you. Fool me twice? Well you cant fool me twice"

i'm not going to lie, though - when i read that elsewhere this morning, the first thing i thought was "i wonder if that 'intelligence' came from chatgpt as well?" [0]

[0] https://www.thedailybeast.com/tulsi-gabbard-admits-to-asking... - forgive the crappy source, i'm not super serious about this line of discussion :)

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#464

Post by lordofgibbons »

pvg wrote: post #438
lordofgibbons wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming the vuln researcher has access to the backdoored binary. That's not necessarily the case. Imagine if they pushed an update of the app out with the vuln to only some users, or users in {country} in their app release configs

Imagine if they pushed an update of the app out with the vuln to only some users, or users in {country} in their app release configs "Imagine an arbitrarily powerful adversary operating in arbitrarily narrow, undetectable ways" is not meaningful threat modeling beside being a kind of Universal Goalpost Moving technique. It is not a 'meme' that WhatsApp is e2e encrypted if that's the form and content of your objection…

> "Imagine an arbitrarily powerful adversary operating in arbitrarily narrow, undetectable ways

Imagine reading the docs. It's a literal thing you can do by pushing code down to the mobile client from your server. We do this all the time for our app. I'm not sure what you're arguing.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#465

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mousethatroared wrote: post #281
gspencley wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are we toppling all these foreign governments I don't want to speak to the other foreign governments, and I think there is a LOT of room for healthy criticism of how the USA handles its foreign policy, past & present. But to answer the question directly with respects to Iran, specifically: the leadership has been repeatedly chanting "Death To America" for its 45 year history and have been actively trying to dev…

We dont care about Iran having a nuke any more than we care about Pakistan's or N. Korea. N. Korea has said mean things to us too. The only thing we care about is Iran's resources and support for the Palestinians.

> only thing we care about is Iran's resources and support for the Palestinians

What’s with the Palestinian distortion effect?

We sanctioned Iran’s oil. And to the degree we consider the Palestinians, it’s in mostly ignoring their interests. (But still caring to learn about them more than the North Koreans’ or Pakistanis’.)

The difference is Pyongyang has behaved rationally. It doesn’t sponsor terror groups across the region. And most importantly, it’s already a nuclear power with the credibly ability to destroy an ally. (Pakistan does the terrorist thing, hence “ally from hell” and the pivot to India, but it at least does a halfway decent job of keeping its proxies from directly targeting Americans in a way Tehran has failed to do with e.g. the Houthis and its proxies in Iraq.)

Iran is none of those things. Most importantly, one of our allies it threatens initiated the attack. If Seoul or even New Delhi initiated a render-safe operation against their enemies, there is a good chance America would at least consider joining to finish the job.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#466

Post by lxgr »

gkbrk wrote: post #330
lxgr wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would require explicit code to do so, which would probably be extremely hard to explain away.

Are people publicly archiving, reverse engineering, and auditing every single version of Whatsapp? Would you even know if you got a special copy of Whatsapp (still signed by Meta and valid) that has this explicit code?

> Are people publicly archiving, reverse engineering, and auditing every single version of Whatsapp?

Absolutely for archiving: https://androidapks.com/whatsapp-messenger/com-whatsapp/old/

Reverse engineering to some extent as well – it's an extremely popular app, and as such attracts both security researchers and bloggers that just want to get scoops on new features behind feature flags etc.

> Would you even know if you got a special copy of Whatsapp (still signed by Meta and valid) that has this explicit code?

Given the above, it's feasible – at least on Android, it's fairly easy to hash the .apk you've received and compare it to publicly know versions.

The threat of somebody finding unusual code on their phone will probably not deter targeted deploys by sophisticated/state level actors to specific users, but it goes some way towards making it implausible that everybody is running a backdoored version, potentially backdoored by Meta themselves, which is arguably the goal.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#467

Post by tptacek »

lordofgibbons wrote: post #464
pvg wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if they pushed an update of the app out with the vuln to only some users, or users in {country} in their app release configs "Imagine an arbitrarily powerful adversary operating in arbitrarily narrow, undetectable ways" is not meaningful threat modeling beside being a kind of Universal Goalpost Moving technique. It is not a 'meme' that WhatsApp is e2e encrypted if that's the form and content of your objection…

> "Imagine an arbitrarily powerful adversary operating in arbitrarily narrow, undetectable ways Imagine reading the docs. It's a literal thing you can do by pushing code down to the mobile client from your server. We do this all the time for our app. I'm not sure what you're arguing.

At the very least, "closed source" has nothing to do with your objection, which is in fact about build provenance.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#468

Post by JumpCrisscross »

eddythompson80 wrote: post #234
v5v3 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. Chinese planes with transponders being turned off are landing in Iran with unknown Cargo on board. (Reported across the news). Iran is supplying Russia with Drones for Ukraine so strategic partner. Russia recently lost Syria as an ally with the change in government, they will not want to lose Iran to the USA too. If the West can back Ukraine to the level they have done, then no different for Iran's friends…

They are turning off their transponders?! No way.

> They are turning off their transponders?! No way.

Maybe half a dozen transports did so after filing false papers about flying to Luxembourg. Whatever military kit is flying is in in practice inconsequential. It’s more likely shuttling something important out, or deploying surveillance equipment to get SIGINT on B-2s.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#469

Post by dttze »

ben_w wrote: post #461
dttze wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the Ayatollah has had a long standing fatwa against the procurement of nuclear weapons.

Yeah, and the ten commandments in the New Testament don't give exceptions for "death penalty" and "war"*, that doesn't stop Christians from signing up for the military or even seeing a contradiction. * on the former, NT has an example of the crowd who want to stone someone, instead being convinced to leave; and the latter NT contains the origin of the phrase "to go the extra mile", which is about helping foreign sold…

Just because most Christians are hypocrites that worship Mammon doesn't mean the Ayatollah is.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#470

Post by ben_w »

dttze wrote: post #469
ben_w wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and the ten commandments in the New Testament don't give exceptions for "death penalty" and "war"*, that doesn't stop Christians from signing up for the military or even seeing a contradiction. * on the former, NT has an example of the crowd who want to stone someone, instead being convinced to leave; and the latter NT contains the origin of the phrase "to go the extra mile", which is about helping foreign sold…

Just because most Christians are hypocrites that worship Mammon doesn't mean the Ayatollah is.

"Ayatollah" is more like "Bishop" in this analogy. Bishop of Rome doesn't like AI, news reports this, nothing changes.
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