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What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

faq.whatsapp.com

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Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#61

Post by baby »

Ellipse0934 wrote: post #20
capableweb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I don't understand that continues to happen in politics, technology and many other facets of life. Why do you have to either fully support or fully be against a entity? You can selectively like some things someone does while not liking other things they do, same goes for corporations. You also don't have to justify bad things by listing good things they've also done, you can just like the good thing…

Most political systems tend to converge into a two-party system. I think the internet has made people more vocal but access to opposing and nuanced viewpoints has made a lot of people grey. I know that's the case for me, not sure if it encapsulates the majority.

Rank choice voting would definitely change that

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#62

Post by foolinaround »

dman wrote: post #9

As a user I find this section very intriguing. ************************* "Can WhatsApp work with law enforcement without traceability? WhatsApp respects the important work law enforcement does to keep people safe. Our dedicated team reviews and responds to valid law enforcement requests. We respond to valid requests by providing the limited categories of information available to us, consistent with applicable law and…

there have been atleast 2 instances in the past few months where Indian govt agencies were able to release whatsapp messages of their opponents.

It is safe to say that if you are doing anything remotely of interest to the govt, you should not be using this tool.

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#63

Post by baby »

mdon wrote: post #55
paxys wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Facebook disclosed their numbers in the acquisition filings. E.g. from https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/032515/whats... – > WhatsApp’s six-month revenue for the first half of 2014 totaled $15.9 million and the company incurred a staggering net loss of $232.5 million, though the majority of that loss was for share-based compensation. WhatsApp was always running on VC cash.

Not true - that loss was based on employee compensation due to the size of the deal and realized stock appreciation. WhatsApp could have covered operating costs indefinitely from user $1 payments.

Let’s be honest, nobody would have paid that $1 (you had a free year before you had to pay IIRC). Everyone would have switched to another free service.

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#64

Post by baby »

nashashmi wrote: post #6

I dont see the argument posed here. If a user sends a new message to 2nd user, and 2nd user forwards the message to a government agent, and agent asks for the origin of the message, there is a way to both encrypt the message and trace it. It's called convergent encryption. And I thought this was how whatsapp was tracking messages that were forwarded multiple times. By checking their base hash.

Interesting, do you have resources to learn more on that?

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#65

Post by jdlshore »

Ellipse0934 wrote: post #41
dman wrote: post #9

As a user I find this section very intriguing. ************************* "Can WhatsApp work with law enforcement without traceability? WhatsApp respects the important work law enforcement does to keep people safe. Our dedicated team reviews and responds to valid law enforcement requests. We respond to valid requests by providing the limited categories of information available to us, consistent with applicable law and…

> So my question here is that in a hypothetical scenario where terrorists are using whatsapp to coordinate an evil plot, which to most people would fit a scenario where Facebook can and should help the government - what is it that Facebook can do to help a government? This logic has been used to justify mass-surveillance and degrade encryption for national security and "protecting the children" narrative. The problem…

I think you've misunderstood the rhetorical device @dman is using. They're not saying Facebook should have the tools to help a government; they're asking what tools they have when they do want to help.

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#66

Post by reaperducer »

Y_Y wrote: post #40
smoldesu wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iMessage operates much on the same principals.

Is this a pun about "principal" referring to the person suspected of commuting a crime, or merely a Freudian typo?

Never ascribe to malice what is probably just stupid autocorrect.

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#67

Post by ljm »

dman wrote: post #9

As a user I find this section very intriguing. ************************* "Can WhatsApp work with law enforcement without traceability? WhatsApp respects the important work law enforcement does to keep people safe. Our dedicated team reviews and responds to valid law enforcement requests. We respond to valid requests by providing the limited categories of information available to us, consistent with applicable law and…

It sounds like fancy talk for "we don't share the content, we just share the metadata." Or in this case, "we encrypt the content, but we don't encrypt the metadata"

Of course, the metadata has always been more valuable than the exact content of your message, but it's always presented as a negligible detail.

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#68

Post by tg180 »

dman wrote: post #47
Cantinflas wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to break end to end encryption, they already control both ends. And the unencrypted backups

The backups are an interesting thing that you bring up. The cynic in me cant help thinking that even as companies posture about being pro privacy, they do design features in a way where they can subvert privacy with plausible deniability. For instance the move away from screen passwords to biometric things like fingerprints had me thinking about the fact that from a police pov - if they have a suspect in custody, for…

If you are thinking about a scenario like xkcd-538, it’s even worse.

Pass-codes and pass-phrases are protected under the 5th amendment, while biometrics are not.

The investigator will get a warrant for the biometric in question, refusing to comply is an offense.

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#69

Post by bgdam »

spoonjim wrote: post #27
Ellipse0934 wrote: post #26

Can't whatsapp pull off a big brain time and disallow forwarding ? Then users must copy and paste messages, links and media. Hence every message is a source message.

The "Forwarded" note helps identify misinformation. If there's a message that says "2 Muslims came to my house yesterday, stole my baby, and ate her" and it comes from your friend you might actually believe it. If it says "Forwarded" you have a better signal that it's fake.

The same 'Forwarded' tag can be easily attached to a message that is copy-pasted verbatim (atleast from another whatsapp message). Anecdotal evidence suggests that 'Forwarding' is just way too easy as compared to copy pasting an entire message to each person you want to send to. So forcing people to do this would indeed reduce the amount of misinformation being spread via unvetted forwards (at the cost of 'valid' forward messages - which I think are too few to matter).

Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?

#70

Post by joshuaissac »

kryogen1c wrote: post #48
swiley wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something people are just not talking about for some reason. WhatsApp/signal style apps cannot be secure to this sort of attack. You would think now that a public mass attack has been successfully carried out (encrochat) people would get it. I don't know if it's submarine marketing or what but people think the current situation is just fine.

> WhatsApp/signal style apps cannot be secure to this sort of attack. isnt this not true? e2e keys are not known to signal server like they are on whatsapp. also there are no serverside signal backups.

> e2e keys are not known to signal server like they are on whatsapp. also there are no serverside signal backups.

E2E keys are not known to WhatsApp's servers, and there are no server-side WhatsApp backups, either.

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