129
linuxxx
4y

Facebook publicly announced that it won't build a backdoor into its services for the intelligence agencies as for the latest requests to weaken/remove the encryption.

I can only imagine the intelligence agencies going like this now:

NSA director: Alright, as expected they said no so they won't have more damage to their public image, lets go for plan A 2.0!
NSA employee: Aaaand that is?
NSA director: Serve them a FISA court order requiring them to do this shit anyways but also serve a gag order so they can't tell legally.
NSA employee: Ahh, fair enough, I'll get that rolling. By the way, how did we do this with WhatsApp's encryption again?
NSA director: Oh that one was simple. There's a backup function which nearly everyone uses on either Android/iOS which does plaintext backups to Google Drive/iCloud.
NSA employee: Oh, okay. How do we access that data again?
NSA director: PRISM/XKeyScore!
NSA employee: Right, but then still the issue of how we even collect the encrypted messages from Facebo...
NSA director: PRISM/XKeyScore as well, don't worry about that.
NSA employee: But, how'd we justify this....?
NSA director: We probably never have to as these programs operate outside of the public view but otherwise just call terrorism/pedophelia... BAM, done.
NSA employee: Gotya, let's put this into motion!

Comments
  • 34
    Wait, WhatsApp backups are in plain text? The fuck?
  • 36
    @SZenC Yup, always have been. And the only backup option is Google Drive/iCloud.

    So if/when you do backups, the cloud providers have plaintext access anyways.

    Source: just do some searching and you'll see.
  • 18
    @SZenC Also, the storage used by WhatsApp backups doesn't count as for your google drive quota, thus pointing to some more data hunger :/
  • 5
    @linuxxx

    iCloud backups are indeed stored encrypted.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/...

    Not so much with the Google Drive backups, which are in plaintext.
  • 4
    @ArchLinux Alright, do you have a link to the repo or something similar with the code that does the encryption with iCloud?
  • 3
    @linuxxx

    Uhh, its closed source, between Apple iCloud and Whatsapp.

    Not an open source implementation, i am not a fan of closed source implementations.

    But this is Apple, and we can expect to a small degree of privacy guarantees from them.
  • 2
    Based & Redpilled.
  • 5
    I'm always heavily amused by your rants chief!
  • 3
    Oh come on, does anyone srsly believe this BS? I can publicly announce I am gonna learn Spanish next year but that doesn't make it true just because I've said so!
  • 5
    @ArchLinux I'm sorry but knowing the fact that they also (Apple) are integrated within the PRISM mass surveillance network makes that I don't trust Apple a single bit.

    I consider their encryption and such as not secure until we can see some code and verify it actually runs on those devices.
  • 1
    @karma Thank you 😊
  • 3
    @netikras Holà amigos! Como esta?
  • 5
    @Jilano I publicly announce I will reply to you in spanish
  • 10
    "Secret court orders".. yeah that's the US going full Soviet style.
  • 3
    @Fast-Nop Fucking swamp...
  • 2
    NSA just uses their spy tool to check up on their ex boyfriends/girlfriends anyway.
  • 2
    @netikras Todavía recuerden el acontecimiento cuando los coches negros del FBI llegaban al oficios de Apple y ellos negaron desbloquear un iPhone de un terroristo morido? Al final encontraban otra camino llegar a los datos. Si lo quieren lo van a lograr. Es así.

    They will always have their ways. We are talking about agencies that used submariens to tap the internet cables (https://theatlantic.com/internation...).
  • 2
    @SZenC it's clearly stated in the backup menu that they are not encrypted
  • 4
    Since when do we belive big corporations?
  • 0
    @linuxxx fängt you just copy the backup files every once in a while and store them yourself in a cloud? You can then also encrypt then so I don't think it's fair to say Google drive is the ONLY option. Also most people don't really know how to back up to Google drive and just leave it not backed up, I've seen this countless times. People who are capable of going the extra mile and making sure there data is backed up to google drive should also go the extra mile and if it's so important to them check to see if it's encrypted. This is for me users getting lazy. That said I do prefer other services but I blame stupid people for not using then enough more than I blame the big corporates.
  • 0
    @chagai95 This has nothing to do with blaming the big corporates. Its about a thing called ethics :)
  • 0
    I mean, this just the whole apple phone security thing all over again: Tell the public they won't do such a thing, and do it anyway. Security theatre is incredibly common.
  • 1
    @hash-table Reality check: it was Obama who had propped up the various secret services like crazy. Which means that the US already have a problem in that the various secret services are out of control. With "secret courts" in Soviet style. It doesn't matter which party puts up the president, so the voters can't vote about that.

    Oh and btw, when Obama was elected, it was the right wing people who drooled, fantasising that they would be sent to gulags under Dem rule. Remember the panic about the alleged "FEMA concentration camps"? Yeah, that.

    No matter which president, half of the US Americans are always nuts.
  • 1
    @hash-table This "secret court order" shit was already there under Obama. With ridiculous laws in that the victims of these courts aren't even allowed to talk with lawyers about these things because they're so secret. The disturbing thing isn't the presidency, it's that such Soviet style stuff even exists in the first place.

    Also, it was Obama and not Trump who repeatedly infringed on checks and balances. Obama ruled by presidential decree like no other before him.

    The underlying structural problem is the bipartisan gridlock with no effort to cooperate for the country, making everyone suffer. That situation reminds strongly of pre-1789 France where king and nobles fought a similar war against each other - at the expense of the people.
  • 0
    @hash-table Ummm, it was the dems that wanted to eliminate presidential term limits. It was nearly proposed during his reign. I hear of no such rhetoric coming from the reps.
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