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Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

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Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#81
post #17

> Social media platforms based in the U.S. including Facebook and WhatsApp will be forced to share users’ encrypted messages with British police under a new treaty between the two countries, according to a person familiar with the matter. This sounds as if the platforms are already sharing with the US authorities. So this being about them sharing it now with UK authorities.

If I'm reading that right, they are getting the encrypted messages, not the decrypted ones. Either whoever wrote the article doesn't know the different or the uk police have been fucked over by the us...

[deleted]

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#82

There's a funny,rag level newspaper in the UK, called DailyMail. I suggest reading comments under the article about this, gives a good idea of how naive people can be. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7514787/Facebook-fo...

Nothing funny about the Daily Mail, it's the mouth piece of the reactionary idiots on the right (there are just as many on the left before I get tagged as a liberal) and has been for a century give or take.

This is the newspaper that had an editorial starting with "Hurrah the Blackshirts".

https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/blog/2017/oct/31/horrible-h...

Other than using it as a way of keeping an eye on what some people in my society will believe (because the Mail told them to) I see zero merit in it's continued existence.

It's a cancer with a masthead.

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#83
post #75
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal may or may not be ok at the moment, but not in a couple of years (it has all the power to silently push an update with a backdoor). Among all the popular messaging apps only Telegram is in a position to not cooperate with five eyes.

I use to defend Telegram but they are technically UK based AFAIK.

I thought it was Berlin.

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#84
post #27

This is essentially a worrying prospect if these developments are actually implemented or advance further. The users trust in the social media service is breached if a backdoor where to be placed in their products (It also defeats the purpose of the end-to-end encryption argument). If you reside in the UK and especially in London, things have just become 500% more Orwellian. >Priti Patel, the U.K.’s home secretary, h…

>In London alone, it is not possible to pay for public transport with cash and a card is required. Their reasons for doing this because it "benefits criminals" is echoing the "ban encryption" nonsense. Not strictly true. You can buy an oyster card with cash, you can load it with cash and use that. After a weeks worth of journeys you can return it and get your £5 deposit back and buy another one. Not exactly perfect b…

although you anonymously purchase the oyster card, you can be de-anonymized the moment you scan the card, as face recognition links you with that card.

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#85
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't read that - are you sure about this? I am reading that backdoors are being asked to be created on WhatsApp. Anyway the messages aren't stored. From the article: Priti Patel, the U.K.’s home secretary, has previously warned that Facebook’s plan to enable users to send end-to-end encrypted messages would benefit criminals, and called on social media firms to develop “back doors” to give intelligence agencies a…

> "I didn't read that" Why comment if you didn't read the article? It's in the first paragraph: "Social media platforms based in the U.S. including Facebook and WhatsApp will be forced to share users’ encrypted messages with British police under a new treaty"

He is saying that he didn't interrupt that from the article--not that he didn't read the article.

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Whatsapp binary is sufficiently transparent to enable someone determined to write their own client. Thats enough info for an expert to verify their "messages are end to end encrypted and we don't know the key" claim. The fly in the ointment is the client might have additional functionality to leak the e2e encryption key. That is far harder to find, but if it's use were widespread, it would be found by researchers…

Yep, the chat log backup basically renders WhatsApp completely insecure. They also constantly nag you inside the app to enable it. This is how they caught Michael Cohen (and presumably others). Unfortunately Signal does it, too.

Signals backups are encrypted.

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you notice the article doesn't say anything about decrypting the messages? It just says they have to turn over encrypted messages.

The question should be why on Earth would they ask access to encrypted messages if they couldn't already decrypt them, or be able to do that soon.

You can infer a lot of information from the metadata, like the volume and timing of messages.

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#88
post #17

> Social media platforms based in the U.S. including Facebook and WhatsApp will be forced to share users’ encrypted messages with British police under a new treaty between the two countries, according to a person familiar with the matter. This sounds as if the platforms are already sharing with the US authorities. So this being about them sharing it now with UK authorities.

It's laundering. The idea is presumably to circumvent US rules on domestic spying by having GCGQ do it and transfer it to US agencies.

Similarly the UK has had its spying ruled unlawful under ECHR: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/13/gchq-data-co... (perhaps this is why Richard Dearlove, "C" of MI6, is so Brexity)

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#89
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't someone from inside the Facebook/Whatsapp team denounce it if that was the case? Like a whistle blower

FB's history suggests they have a culture of not blowing the whistle when shady things are going on. I suspect most people want to keep their $500k+/year jobs instead of sticking their necks out. My friends who work at FAANG are largely mentally checked out, and just do it to collect their monies and retire ASAP. You can't pay rent with good feelings.

> You can't pay rent with good feelings.

So just keep making the world shittier. Gotta love individualist capitalism.

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?

#90
post #76

1) If someone wants to find something you are "hiding", they will anyway. It's always been like this. Encryption is never a protection against this. 2) Personally I still think e2e encryption is not a secure solution on operating systems that runs godmode 3rd party, eg. google play services: it relies on a key that can be stolen too many ways too easily. Signal included. 3) internet eons (20 years) ago we nearly all…

The landscape changed. More people use the internet, more spy agencies from multiple countries siphon traffic en bulk, information of higher value is exchanged over the internet, more untrusted parties are involved (e.g. wifi hotspots).

I mean go ahead, do everything unencrypted. But I surely won't entrust data to you if you're leaking like a sieve.

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