What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?
faq.whatsapp.com
What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?
1–10 of 120 posts
Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?
#2Facebook talking about respecting human rights and privacy... If you want to make a truly secure messaging platform release the client and server side source code or gtfo.
Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?
#3I hate Facebook as much as anyone here on HN, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
If keeping end-to-end-encryption also happens to be in the interest of some faceless multinational corporation, we can use their resources in this fight.
We can go back to fighting Facebook once this is over.
Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?
#4I hate Facebook as much as anyone here on HN, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If keeping end-to-end-encryption also happens to be in the interest of some faceless multinational corporation, we can use their resources in this fight. We can go back to fighting Facebook once this is over.
Facebook's big enough that we don't even have to stop fighting them while we support them in this endeavour.
Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?
#5I hate Facebook as much as anyone here on HN, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If keeping end-to-end-encryption also happens to be in the interest of some faceless multinational corporation, we can use their resources in this fight. We can go back to fighting Facebook once this is over.
Facebook's big enough that we don't even have to stop fighting them while we support them in this endeavour.
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 and hate the bad thing.
People are so black and white. Don't think it's a new thing, but the internet has made it very popular to be black and white in our thinking.
Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?
#6I 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.
Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?
#7I 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.
FYI convergent encryption is hashing the original message, using hash as key to encrypt message, and sending hash key to user via 2nd encryption. The hash encrypted message will generate a second hash which will be used to track the spread of a message.
Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?
#8I hate Facebook as much as anyone here on HN, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If keeping end-to-end-encryption also happens to be in the interest of some faceless multinational corporation, we can use their resources in this fight. We can go back to fighting Facebook once this is over.
Or just use other tools for communication.
Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?
#9As a user I find this section very intriguing.
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"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 policy. We also have a team devoted to assisting law enforcement 24/7 with emergencies involving imminent harm or risk of death or serious physical injury. We consistently receive feedback from law enforcement that our responses to requests help solve crimes and bring people to justice.
It’s also important to understand that depending upon the nature of their investigations, law enforcement officials have multiple investigative tools, and may obtain information from many sources, including different companies, other governments, or from users’ devices. More information about how we work with law enforcement can be found here."
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Can Facebook clarify what these limited categories of information are? While reading this article I had the following reaction - Facebook would like to prevent traceability to preserve user privacy. That makes complete sense. Oh wait - they say they do have means of helping law enforcement and governments, wait a minute, in a fully encrypted system end to end how are they able to help governments in emergencies at all?
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?
The only way I can see them being able to help the government is if they have the ability to selectively turn off end to end encryption for specific numbers (probably based on a warrant from a court). Will Facebook confirm if this is the case?
Re: What is traceability and why does WhatsApp oppose it?
#10Facebook talking about respecting human rights and privacy... If you want to make a truly secure messaging platform release the client and server side source code or gtfo.
Sometimes I wonder if "truly secure" messaging platform and "internet" messaging platform are incompatible. Is the reality that any internet based digital messaging platform is insecure in the long term. Eventually, your messages can be retrieved, traced, even tracked real time.
I think if your information needs security, don't put that information on the internet.