Live data from Hacker News

The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts

wsj.com

61–70 of 191 posts

Re: The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts

#61
post #55

Didn't TextSecure stop encrypting SMS a while back? If you lose data connectivity you're sending in the clear, right?

Yes. This is really annoying it was one of the major selling points - I'd got several people to install it on this basis. They had a reason for the change but I was un-impressed

The best thing that one can say is that it is well indicated by the UI whether the message will be secure. Blue for encrypted. Green for clear. I've managed to explain this to some very tech unsavy people.

Re: The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts

#64
post #5

I get a lot of credit for the stuff that Open Whisper Systems does, but it's not all me by a long shot. Trevor Perrin, Frederic Jacobs, Christine Corbett, Tyler Reinhard, Lilia Kai, Jake McGinty, and Rhodey Orbits are the crew that really made all this work happen.

Thank you for http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unZZCykRa5w . Your notion of 'bundling' was one of my top three most mulled ideas in the past five years. Once I started looking, I see it everywhere.

Thanks so much for posting this youtube. It is fantastic!

Re: The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts

#65
post #50
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that we have the man himself onboard - can I urge you to ask the WSJ to remove the comment at the start of the article about WhatsApp implementing your encryption schema? Unless I've missed something, there's absolutely no way for an end-user to determine if their messages are being encrypted (with whatsapp). Or how they're being encrypted for that matter. I feel like WhatsApp latched onto your groundwork (pote…

even if an Android application would communicate with others 100% securely, Google has wireless administrator privileges and can be served secret letters that can order Google to do anything, so technically they could log the data before it's encrypted.

Will an I/O audit of the network interface will detect this?

Re: The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts

#66
post #65
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even if an Android application would communicate with others 100% securely, Google has wireless administrator privileges and can be served secret letters that can order Google to do anything, so technically they could log the data before it's encrypted.

Will an I/O audit of the network interface will detect this?

No. How do you propose that it would?

Re: The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts

#67

>Unfortunately, if Mr. Marlinspike’s encryption scheme can be applied to imagery, then childporn collectors thank him too. And there we go, highest voted comment on the article: a strawman about child pornography. Think of the keeeds

"Think of the childern" is a common refrain of the coward who values safety over freedom.

I wonder how many of the people on that think of the children side were either affected as kids, had children who had some awful experience, or are of close relation to someone who was or had kids who did. Because I could easily see something like an awful event happening to a child really warping a persons world view in a strong way.

On the other hand, I wonder how many privacy advocates have never experienced anything awful in that sense.

I'm on the privacy side myself and it's true child touchers are just hearsay for me. I know they exist, I know it happens, but it's not generally at the forefront of my mind when thinking about much of anything really. And I really wonder what I'd think if everytime I thought about policy I also had poor Timmy's story echoing away for all eternity in my head.

And then I wonder for the motivations of the people for whom child touchers are hearsay but are really opposed to privacy. Their motives must include things like drug dealers, terrorists, a belief in their own clean slate, money. It's pretty interesting to think about what goes on behind the scenes of any argument that gains popular traction.

Re: The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts

#68
post #35
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that we have the man himself onboard - can I urge you to ask the WSJ to remove the comment at the start of the article about WhatsApp implementing your encryption schema? Unless I've missed something, there's absolutely no way for an end-user to determine if their messages are being encrypted (with whatsapp). Or how they're being encrypted for that matter. I feel like WhatsApp latched onto your groundwork (pote…

Part way through the article they say: >Last fall, WhatsApp added Mr. Marlinspike’s encryption scheme to text messages between users with Android smartphones, but there is no easy way to verify that the encryption software is actually turned on. So they're being pretty open about the fact users can't determine if their messages are truly encrypted.

Yes but that's so deep down. A large number of people read the beginning and skim to the end. They might miss it. So it is a bit misleading IMO. Disclaimers should be more obvious

Re: The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts

#69

>Unfortunately, if Mr. Marlinspike’s encryption scheme can be applied to imagery, then childporn collectors thank him too. And there we go, highest voted comment on the article: a strawman about child pornography. Think of the keeeds

But what if people use the N word in encrypted texts? What about the minorities?? Hate speech is everywhere, what if they deny the holocaust?

Re: The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts

#70
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part way through the article they say: >Last fall, WhatsApp added Mr. Marlinspike’s encryption scheme to text messages between users with Android smartphones, but there is no easy way to verify that the encryption software is actually turned on. So they're being pretty open about the fact users can't determine if their messages are truly encrypted.

Yes but that's so deep down. A large number of people read the beginning and skim to the end. They might miss it. So it is a bit misleading IMO. Disclaimers should be more obvious

[deleted]
Post reply on HN