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It's great that WhatsApp can't see my cat pictures anymore. But there are 2 privacy and free speech issues that are not met. Firstly META DATA. They know who I

It's great that WhatsApp can't see my cat pictures anymore. But there are 2 privacy and free speech issues that are not met. Firstly META DATA. They know who I contact, when I contact them and how frequently. So people could derive information about me based on who I talk to. Secondly, they can ban me. Perhaps the EFF need to add more criteria to their secure message score card. https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard But on the whole, a positive move.

nxzero 11y ago
Agree. Reluctant to be critical of the topic, given how much those involved have managed to get done, but it is very concerning to me from what I'm able to tell how low priorty this issue appears to be. Second issue that to me is pressing given the volume of users is that in my opinion a commitment to execute an audit of the code/crypto/workflow/etc needs to be made; I'd start a campaign to fund this, but such a campaign would be much more likely to succeed if offically acknowledged and more importantly, resources are provide internally to enable it.
- ianpurton 11y ago
  True, forgot about that. Even if we could see the code, it might be possible for google or apple to send certain groups of people modified software updates?
maxerickson 11y ago
When the client is a phone and the service is rapid messaging, how do you even begin to solve the metadata problem? Even with opaque routing the phone company can correlate activity times.
- ianpurton 11y ago
  You could use a decentralised network such as Bitcoin to send messages. I would also implement Bloom filters to lower my network usage and confuse the nodes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_filter I would choose random nodes to cause a bit more noise. And finally my messages would have some sort of Bloom filter derived destination address. So as to confuse it all a bit more.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    If you are merely confusing the metadata, it's irresponsible to tell people that your app does something useful to resist metadata discovery. It doesn't necessarily make it useless to implement the obfuscation, but short of an implementation that guarantees resistance, it's likely to be harmful to tell people that it resists metadata discovery.
- nxzero 11y ago
  There's never a single right solution, but if traffic analysis was the issue, endpoints could introduce latency, use Tor, sync/mix traffic with other endpoints via P2P, inject fake traffic, etc. - though if the core system leaks metadata, this would be pointless.
  - 21 11y ago
    Messaging apps are often used outside, with limited bandwidth, and are highly interactive. I would be annoyed to wait more than 0.5 sec until my message is delivered. Maybe an "ultra-secure" mode could be created, and if you enable that for a chat, traffic could be routed through tor. And you would have a separate list of "ultra-secure" contacts, which are not based on phone-numbers.
    - maxerickson 11y ago
      Special routing for the ultrasecure messages highlights that they were requested to be ultrasecure and makes correlation easier (by reducing the candidate pool).
      - 21 11y ago
        Right, but it would be like the ISP knowing that you use Tor. Useful, but not that much if you do it constantly. This ultra-secure mode for example could send a 1 KB packet every 15 minutes, weather you are talking with someone or not. Something would also need to be done to incoming packets, so that they won't stand out. I'm sure there is a suitable protocol out there. This would increase latency and reduce capacity, but this is why it's called ultrasecure, some inconveniences are expected.
ethbro 11y ago
I think the biggest privacy / free speech issue is sustainability. Or the OpenSSL / OpenPGP problem. What's a feasible monetization / business model look like built around software that is privacy-focused and customer-centric? Because it's all well and good when you have a massive social data-mining company to bankroll your development, but what happens if that disappears / priorities change / the US government leans hard on FB? Sustainability is important in code development too. PS: In no way is this intended to diminish the efforts of the team. Hats off to everyone at WhatsApp for implementing this, FB for supporting it, and EFF for their general awesomeness!
zanny 11y ago
The open source part covers both those problems. If whatsapp respected user freedom, users could fork it and add metadata encryption to the system, and by the nature of forking and redistributing would create a network of similar apps. It doesn't stop whatsapp proper from being non-federated like XMPP or Matrix, so maybe that does deserve its own criteria.

nxzero 11y ago

Agree. Reluctant to be critical of the topic, given how much those involved have managed to get done, but it is very concerning to me from what I'm able to tell how low priorty this issue appears to be. Second issue that to me is pressing given the volume of users is that in my opinion a commitment to execute an audit of the code/crypto/workflow/etc needs to be made; I'd start a campaign to fund this, but such a campaign would be much more likely to succeed if offically acknowledged and more importantly, resources are provide internally to enable it.

ianpurton 11y ago
True, forgot about that. Even if we could see the code, it might be possible for google or apple to send certain groups of people modified software updates?

maxerickson 11y ago

When the client is a phone and the service is rapid messaging, how do you even begin to solve the metadata problem? Even with opaque routing the phone company can correlate activity times.

ianpurton 11y ago
You could use a decentralised network such as Bitcoin to send messages. I would also implement Bloom filters to lower my network usage and confuse the nodes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_filter I would choose random nodes to cause a bit more noise. And finally my messages would have some sort of Bloom filter derived destination address. So as to confuse it all a bit more.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  If you are merely confusing the metadata, it's irresponsible to tell people that your app does something useful to resist metadata discovery. It doesn't necessarily make it useless to implement the obfuscation, but short of an implementation that guarantees resistance, it's likely to be harmful to tell people that it resists metadata discovery.
nxzero 11y ago
There's never a single right solution, but if traffic analysis was the issue, endpoints could introduce latency, use Tor, sync/mix traffic with other endpoints via P2P, inject fake traffic, etc. - though if the core system leaks metadata, this would be pointless.
- 21 11y ago
  Messaging apps are often used outside, with limited bandwidth, and are highly interactive. I would be annoyed to wait more than 0.5 sec until my message is delivered. Maybe an "ultra-secure" mode could be created, and if you enable that for a chat, traffic could be routed through tor. And you would have a separate list of "ultra-secure" contacts, which are not based on phone-numbers.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    Special routing for the ultrasecure messages highlights that they were requested to be ultrasecure and makes correlation easier (by reducing the candidate pool).
    - 21 11y ago
      Right, but it would be like the ISP knowing that you use Tor. Useful, but not that much if you do it constantly. This ultra-secure mode for example could send a 1 KB packet every 15 minutes, weather you are talking with someone or not. Something would also need to be done to incoming packets, so that they won't stand out. I'm sure there is a suitable protocol out there. This would increase latency and reduce capacity, but this is why it's called ultrasecure, some inconveniences are expected.

ethbro 11y ago

I think the biggest privacy / free speech issue is sustainability. Or the OpenSSL / OpenPGP problem. What's a feasible monetization / business model look like built around software that is privacy-focused and customer-centric? Because it's all well and good when you have a massive social data-mining company to bankroll your development, but what happens if that disappears / priorities change / the US government leans hard on FB? Sustainability is important in code development too. PS: In no way is this intended to diminish the efforts of the team. Hats off to everyone at WhatsApp for implementing this, FB for supporting it, and EFF for their general awesomeness!

zanny 11y ago

The open source part covers both those problems. If whatsapp respected user freedom, users could fork it and add metadata encryption to the system, and by the nature of forking and redistributing would create a network of similar apps. It doesn't stop whatsapp proper from being non-federated like XMPP or Matrix, so maybe that does deserve its own criteria.