I am not one to believe what I read on Bloomberg but the story does say "will be forced to share encrypted messages..."
If that's all this is, good luck to them doing anything with those.
Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?
541–550 of 591 posts
Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?
#542We were surprised to read this story and are not aware of discussions that would force us to change our product. We believe people have a fundamental right to have private conversations. End-to-end encryption protects that right for over a billion people every day. We will always oppose government attempts to build backdoors because they would weaken the security of everyone who uses WhatsApp including governments th…
And? That is what you feel. What guarantees do we have?
Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?
#543Earlier quoted context omitted.
"are not aware of discussions that would force us to change our product." It reads like your product is already compatible with govt ease dropping
Ha, at first I thought you were making a joke that WhatsApp could have been aware of the conversations by ... eavesdropping on the government employees who are using WhatsApp.
Reminds me of the timeless http://bash.org/?88575
Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?
#544Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you add some substance to this? Why do you think warrant canaries are weak?
Warrant canaries haven't been tested in court. (They have been used as notification of an NSL though.) In particular, judges are human beings, not robots, so the laws are interpreted and implemented by humans. Because they're not robots, removing a warrant canary toes the line on communicating to the affected, in violation of an NSL. Thus, removal of the canary most likely means an NSL was received, but the canary st…
Tactically, warrant canaries are dead-man switches. Conceptually, you can't compel someone to explicitly lie publicly.
Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?
#545Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?
#546Earlier quoted context omitted.
Was the Europe heatwave in 2019 caused by government actions?
No, not by their actions of course. It happens because of the lack of appropriate actions by them. Governments should anticipate on future events pointed out by science. And that is what they did not. All I see is business as usual.
Can you cite the scientific evidence?
Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?
#547Earlier quoted context omitted.
IRC clients are largely open source. How do we know they haven't been backdoored?
I think you answered the second part of your post with the first didnt you? Get the source and compile it yourself.
There have been backdoors in Open Source code. I have only read a tiny insignificant fraction of the Open Source code I run.
Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?
#548Earlier quoted context omitted.
Warrant canaries haven't been tested in court. (They have been used as notification of an NSL though.) In particular, judges are human beings, not robots, so the laws are interpreted and implemented by humans. Because they're not robots, removing a warrant canary toes the line on communicating to the affected, in violation of an NSL. Thus, removal of the canary most likely means an NSL was received, but the canary st…
Tactically, warrant canaries are dead-man switches. Conceptually, you can't compel someone to explicitly lie publicly.
But the FBI could advise the canary poster that not continuing to post the canary notice could lead to legal action (esp. since that person has willfully put him/herself into the situation). Then it would be up to the recipient of the NSL to decide if it’s worth that risk, which is as stated above, untested. It’s a fine line between telling them to lie versus telling them the ruse could be in violation of the gag order.
Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?
#549Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If I can compile the code from source myself, without any backdoors, then I can be reasonably assured there aren't any backdoors Where does that leave the rest of society? Having open source software and hardware is not enough, we also need laws that prohibit mass surveillance and support our efforts to uphold human rights.
Relying on laws leaves a lot of wiggle room for bad actors, slippery slopes, and political opinions changing over time. Laws are based on trust in institutions (do you _really_ trust large governments?). Laws are probabilistic, whereas math & source code is deterministic. You can verify that computer code does what it says it does. Laws depend on enforcement and complicated judicial systems (based on humans) to inter…
the backdoor could be in the hardware - the logical conclusion of your position is that we should all fabricate our own computers from scratch so that we're sure that they're secure.
This is clearly a straw man, no one wants to do this, or is suggesting that we do this. But at some point, even the most hardened OSS advocate has to trust someone (usually the hardware manufacturer). You cannot verify that the device you're on doesn't spy on you, you have to rely on the manufacturer's word that it doesn't. And the manufacturer's suppliers, of course, because the manufacturer is trusting them.
Somewhere along the stack, we all have to draw a line and say "beyond this point, I trust that I am not being spied on". You choose to draw that line at the hardware point. Others choose to draw the line at the software point.
Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?
#550Yes, this is something that literally everyone who reads HN will oppose. Meanwhile do you hear the deafening silence from the average Joe who thinks he has "nothing to hide"? Don't hate the politicians who keep pushing this. They're just trying not to get fired. And the surest way to get fired in a western country right now is to be seen doing nothing about the terrorism problem and then having terrorist acts committ…
But by your very comment, it only makes sense to hate the politicians! If all they care about is that they keep their jobs, then isn't trying to get the politicians fired for threatening our privacy the best way to get them to care about our privacy?
No and yes.
Don’t hate the politician for trying to keep their job. In that respect they’re no different from any other person.
Yes, if you can convince politicians that you’re more concerned about the actual damage to your privacy than the hypothetical increase in the probability of a terrorist attack, then go ahead. Do it. Convince them. But my hunch is that most people are far more terrified of dying in a terrorist attack.