For open source messengers, you can check whether they actually encrypt your messages and whether the server has access to your encryption keys but what about WhatsApp? Since it’s not open source, you can’t be sure that the encryption keys aren’t sent to the server, right? Has there been a case where a government was able to access WhatsApp chats without reading them from the phone itself?
Facebook owns what’s app and they can read any message on the service, they’ve also been known to give logs and messages to law enforcement agencies at request without warrants.
Why is it legal for them to advertise it as end-to-end encrypted then? I thought the main danger lies in WhatsApp insistence on backing up non-encrypted history to Google Drive/iCloud.
Of course, the existence of backdoors is usually not disclosed (duh), but can they actually read any message?
Why is it legal for them to advertise it as end-to-end encrypted then?
Because they are a multi-billion dollar company.
EU usually frowns upon that though. Sure, the fines are so small that it’s negligible for Meta, but there should be some fines. But all I find via quick googling are this year’s sanctions over personal data processing in Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp. The nature of these data is not clear though.
I am not trying to say that WhatsApp is safe to use, mind you. I am pretty sure they will hand over all the info along with encryption keys at first government’s request (or any other highest bidder for that matter), but that’s only my perception of them as a company, with no hard proof at hand.
It’s not illegal because it is end to end encrypted when you send messages, but it’s not encrypted on your phone and they have access to that, not to mention, I imagine they have access to the keys used to encrypt the messages, so even if they backed it up encrypted they can still read the messages.
The point of implementing it is not to protect people from surveillance, but rather to make people think they’re protected so they’ll keep using the platform rather than moving to another service. Their actual claims about it amount to “If your on public Wi-Fi or something, people skimming that won’t be able to see your messages” which is absurd because they already couldn’t.
Admittedly, no law enforcement that they refuse to cooperate with will have access to the messages, but like, “law enforcement groups Facebook doesn’t cooperate with” is a very small list.
I believe this is down to what they define as being end to end encrypted.
It’s no secret that WhatsApp adopted Signal’s encryption protocol just before Meta acquired them, but since it’s all closed source we don’t know if they’ve changed anything since the announcement in 2016 that all forms of communications on WhatsApp are now encrypted and rolled out.
Within WhatsApp’s privacy policy, it’s important to note that they only mention end to end encryption when it comes to your messages. Everything else is apparently “fair game” for collection. Of note, the Usage and Log information point details all the metadata they collect on you automatically, including how you use the service; how long you use the service; your profile info; the groups you’re in; whether you’re online; and the last time you were online, to name a few things.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that technically they are end to end encrypted by definition, and whilst they’ve gone ahead and implemented things such as encrypted backups (that you must enable) to make it harder for them to read your message contents, they can still collect a lot of metadata on every user.
It’s no secret that WhatsApp adopted Signal’s encryption protocol just before Meta acquired them, but since it’s all closed source we don’t know if they’ve changed anything since the announcement in 2016 that all forms of communications on WhatsApp are now encrypted and rolled out.
There is an Open Source implementation of the WhatsApp protocol: yowsup
And the metadata is enough to get convictions. A person was convicted back in 2019 or so based on the metadata of her whatsapp conversation with a reporter. Natalie something, I think.
It’s very obvious to me that GBoard sends data directly to Google circumventing all encryption.
I feel like this needs some sort of citation for it. I know some suspect the claims about E2EE are bogus but I haven’t seen actual proof about it.
I mean, they definitely use end to end encryption. The problem is that they’ve done nothing would convince people they’re not harvesting the content of the messages in the app before it’s encrypted and sent. And there is a long history of them handing over decrypted information to law enforcement upon request, without warrant.
The problem is that they’ve done nothing would convince people they’re not harvesting the content of the messages in the app before it’s encrypted and sent.
I assumed it was a more solid case than just that it’s technically possible. I was hoping for cases where we know they’ve done it.
And there is a long history of them handing over decrypted information to law enforcement upon request, without warrant.
Does that include message content though? That’s sorta the crux of what we’re talking about. Metadata for sure, but whether we know that they can read our message content, that’s afaik still unclear.
It’s not enough to have it be E2E-encrypted; E2E means nothing if the decryption keys are not stored locally.
This is just completely wrong. If you read past the misleading headline here:
https://nypost.com/2021/09/07/facebook-reads-and-shares-whatsapp-private-messages-report/
You’ll see that Facebook cannot, in fact, give logs to law enforcement. If you choose to report a message you’ve received and send it to Facebook, then obviously then they can read it.
Also, your claim in another comment that Facebook does not have private keys to decrypt your encrypted messages is just fantasy.
According to the declassified internal FBI document I just linked, they do have access to the content of messages from what’s app, without any formal legal request.
The NY post is a poor source and completely unreliable.
Probably not, but it’s impossible to verify. There’s a strong argument for open source when security really matters.
You bet your ass they can. Since when has Facebook taken anybody’s privacy seriously? And you remember all the Snowden leaks? Like how AT&T has been a government apparatus for spying for decades? Or how about the way that the USA taps under sea cables to monitor data, causing China to build totally parallel backbone infrastructure
The better question is whether Signal, despite being open source, is actually secure. It’s very plausible that the govt has backdoors somewhere, for either encryption, the OS, the programming language, the app store, or some random dependency lib
The answer is yes, the US government spies on everything, and has a complete profile of everyone
Signal hasn’t been compromised. It has been reviewed and is continuing to be reviewed by tons of researchers and security personnel.
Its also important to note that its used internally by goverment organizations in the US so it has to be at least reasonably secure.
Don’t believe propaganda you read online.
Well, in my comment I describe quite a number of methods. It doesn’t matter how secure or reviewed signal is, if the feds have a keylogger at the OS or compiler level. It’s really unbelievable how much code is involved in day to day security
The keylogger and operating system (if you’re using Android) is open source as well. They can’t just put a keylogger in there.
They don’t have to attack the encryption, there are far easier ways. Compromising your phone then reading the notification contents for example. If a smallish company can do this (pegasus) imagine what the resources of the US intelligence complex can do.
The easiest way by far is to intimidate you to give up your phone password and hand over the messages.
XKCD for refference: https://xkcd.com/538/
Another thing to consider is that the US (and probably most 5 eyes countries) have agencies with a “store now and decrypt later” policy. They theoretically could be capturing certain types of traffic and storing it in the massive NSA fusion centers. If you come under suspicion at some later date and the quantum technology has advanced, you could be hosed. Now what’s the legality of storing “precrime material” without a warrant? I wouldn’t think it is legal but that doesn’t seem to stop the 3 letter agencies these days.
