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Facebook Messenger begins testing end-to-end encryption using Signal Protocol
- marak830 10y agoLast I heard, didn't their messenger app pull a ton of not required permissions on Android?
- jmme 10y agoThe Messenger app has Android M permissions model now. you can say no to all of the prompts if you want. I have all of Camera, Contacts, Location, Microphone, Phone, SMS, and Storage permissions disabled.
- marak830 10y agoExcept my phone does not have the update yet (note 3). I really need to root this sucker.
- Sylos 10y agoWell, no, the permissions are required for Facebook to sift through all of your private data.
- alva 10y agoFrom what is written, I understand this to mean that users can select this feature for specific conversations. That not all messages are subject to this encryption. I am not usually one for paranoia, but is anyone else becoming more suspicious about Facebooks motivations and involvement with gov? This feature is a massive boost for intelligence services dealing with unsophisticated actors. This reduces the haystack significantly, by users self flagging messages that may be incriminating. Multi-millions of FB messages must be sent every day, brute-forcing encryption on all of these is probably not possible. A small % marked as 'secret conversation'? Much easier. Why doesn't FB just apply encryption on all messages? Surely they have the resources avail. Is it because this feature makes somebody else's job a lot easier? If my suspicions are correct, what sort of threats would this pick up. Are serious threats likely to use FB messages with 'secret conversation' flagged to co-ordinate actions?
- yoz-y 10y agoThey have taken exactly the same approach as Google with the Allo service. This is most probably done because people want to use Chat Bots and services and these do not work with E2E encryption. Well they could work but it would be dishonest branding as the messages would leak.
- nxzero 10y ago>> "Chat Bots and services and these do not work with E2E encryption" It might be true that FB adding E2E breaks existing bots, but it's false that it breaks that ability to use bots on FB.
- yoz-y 10y agoIt could work but as I said it would be dishonest. If a bot can read your messages then you have to trust a third party to not leak/store them. I believe that he goal of E2E encryption is to remove the need to trust somebody. (Of course you still have to trust FB that they do not backdoor or hinder the encryption but you do not have to trust the third parties)
- nxzero 10y agoWith a chatbot you are chatting with the bot. All the bot needs to is be able to use the Signal E2E protocol to establish key & message exchanges. Nothing dishonest about this and nothing different than existing bots other than one uses E2E and one does not.
- yoz-y 10y agoI do not speak of chatbots such as Cleverbot. For example your bot will listen to your messages and provide contextual information, such as theatres airing a movie you are currently talking about. The bot also probably needs to keep track of the context, which probably means keeping the chat history for some time. In order to learn the chatbot needs to keep the history forever and scan it for ML purposes. All of these mean that the bot has to keep the history somewhere unencrypted, basically nullifying the benefit of E2E.
- etiam 10y ago"End-To-End Encrypted ‘Secret Conversations’" in software that is ordinarily used to harvest electronic phone books and rummage through user photos, from a company that made its whole fortune trying to obliterate privacy as a part of human culture? It's going to be pretty high standards of proof to give this anything that resembles credibility.
- emdd 10y agoThis is exactly what I'm thinking. I expect a post in he next day or so from Open Whisper people to lend credibility to this project. They seem to be the Go-To these days. Edit: and it is http://www.whispersystems.org/blog/facebook-messenger http://www.whispersystems.org/blog/facebook-messenger
- Sylos 10y agoYeah, but then, again, how much credibility does Open Whisper Systems actually deserve? For me personally, they've lost a huge chunk of credibility by lending credibility to companies for apparently rewriting the definition of "end-to-end-encryption" from previously referring to the users as the end to now referring to some magical proprietary blackbox as the end. And the other chunk of credibility sort of died off, as they apparently seem to think depending on proprietary Google software for their products is how you do privacy. That is, their Android-client for Signal depends on Google Play Services for receiving notifications, even though LibreSignal exists, which is a fork specifically to remove that dependency, and from which they could have easily pulled that changed code in as a fallback. And when they figured they should make a desktop client, apparently the best technology that they could think of, was a Google Chrome extension.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sweis 10y agoI am confident Facebook will meet your high standards when it comes to E2E encryption for Messenger.
- SixSigma 10y agoI'm still sticking with the website version, thanks https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.orca&hl=en_GB https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.o... Messenger, Facebook This app has access to: Identity find accounts on the device read your own contact card add or remove accounts Contacts find accounts on the device read your contacts modify your contacts Location precise location (GPS and network-based) approximate location (network-based) SMS edit your text messages (SMS or MMS) receive text messages (SMS) send SMS messages read your text messages (SMS or MMS) receive text messages (MMS) Phone read phone status and identity read call log directly call phone numbers reroute outgoing calls Photos / Media / Files modify or delete the contents of your USB storage read the contents of your USB storage Storage modify or delete the contents of your USB storage read the contents of your USB storage Camera take pictures and videos Microphone record audio Wi-Fi connection information view Wi-Fi connections Device ID & call information read phone status and identity Other receive data from Internet download files without notification control vibration run at startup draw over other apps pair with Bluetooth devices send sticky broadcast create accounts and set passwords change network connectivity prevent device from sleeping install shortcuts read battery statistics read sync settings toggle sync on and off read Google service configuration view network connections change your audio settings full network access
- ffggvv 10y agoWhy are you using Facebook in the first place? I thought the HN valued their privacy. Try https://hubzilla.site https://hubzilla.site instead.
- akerro 10y agoSo what. It's metadata that counts.
- secfirstmd 10y agoI wonder by "end-to-end" do they mean they will be implementing Signal Protocol, that would be a pretty awesome increase in security (for most peoples threat models)...WhisperSystems are genuinely amazing at what they do, they have like less than 5 staff and very little budget but they are literally saving hundreds if not thousands of lives. Any chance some rich HN member will recognise this and open up the chequebook to OWS?
- Frank2312 10y agoLooks like it is : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12055375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12055375
- HannibalLecter 10y agoFalse sense of security built right into Facebook's marketing approach. Perfectly great idea for getting some of the juiciest dirt on everyone dumb enough to believe them.
- sigmar 10y agoThis article doesn't mention it, but Facebook Messenger will be using the Signal protocol: https://whispersystems.org/blog/facebook-messenger/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/facebook-messenger/ also, here is the white paper (from the above post): https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/secret_conversations_whitepaper.pdf https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/secret_conv...
- oluwie 10y agoI'm pretty sure (actually positively sure) the article mentions this.
- lorenzhs 10y agoI think the mods merged two threads here, and the other article didn't mention it
- sctb 10y agoWe moved this comment here from the other thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12055042 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12055042.
- eyeareque 10y agoMoxie and team, bravo. You've made the snoopers jobs a whole lot harder. Your goal of making encryption easy to use by the masses is coming come true. It looks as if PGP's days are numbered.
- StavrosK 10y ago> It looks as if PGP's days are numbered. This seems gratuitously hostile (and, even worse, is irrelevant). PGP is a very useful piece of software, and it does something completely different from Signal, and I'm glad both exist.
- justratsinacoat 10y ago>> It looks as if PGP's days are numbered Comments like this are inevitable and represent Facebook's attempts to induce us to route all of our communications though its platform. For the quoted commenter, it's probably too late.
- _yp 10y agoPGP has failed to provide "encryption for the masses".
- cyphar 10y agoPGP fills a niche that OTR and Axolotl do not. It provides a bunch of operations that are not supported by OTR (anything that requires signatures that are verifiable by third parties). PGP is used by the masses (package signatures and similar functions), it's just that they don't use PGP for communication.
- eyeareque 10y agoPGP while a decent technology is very cumbersome. Worse, it's easy to shoot yourself in the foot if you aren't an advanced level user. I've used it for years on a regular basis with various implementations. It's just never been user friendly or easy to use. If it was more user friendly it might have had better adoption rates. As moxie has pointed out, we need something better for the masses, it looks like we are finally seeing progress towards that goal now.
- cdown 10y agoHere's the technical whitepaper: https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/secret_conversations_whitepaper.pdf https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/secret_conv...
- jswny 10y agoI'm really skeptical about this. First of all, Facebook collects more user data than just about any company out there. They make most of their money off of advertising and harvesting user data and metadata. Facebook is just about the last company I'd trust to encrypt data of mine. It's like them saying, "hey, I know we make most of our revenue off of collecting user data but I think we should throw away a huge portion of that." Additionally, from what I've gathered, they are going to role this out so that you have to specifically tell Messenger you want to encrypt a chat. Why would they not just make encryption universal? If anything, this makes it even easier for the government or other entities to target "suspicious activity." I'm far too skeptical of Facebook and how they are going about this whole process to be happy about it.
- evgen 10y agoIt is opt in because there is a huge base of users who use Messenger via the web, and trying to do E2E in that environment is a fool's errand. If you had ever tried to deliver a crypto improvement to an actual shipping product I am sure you would know what sort of limitations one needs to operate within, but please feel free to continue risking other people's lives for the sake of feeling smug in your ignorant dismissal of this effort.
- justratsinacoat 10y ago>but please feel free to continue risking other people's lives for the sake of feeling smug in your ignorant dismissal of this effort OK, I'll bite. How does this commenter's opinion (which is, to be clear, that the feature does not make him/her happy) risk the actual lives of other conscious, living humans?
- evgen 10y agoI replied above, but there are few communication tools with such a wide userbase that have forward-secrecy and similar strong E2E crypto built in and available. People die because of what they post to Facebook or what they send in Messenger, I know this for a fact. With E2E security locked to devices it means that in the few seconds it takes me to wipe my phone while someone is knocking on the door with a gun then the other party to the conversation is not going to be compromised. Is that sufficient?
- eganist 10y agoI'm not immediately seeing any insight into whether this covers conversations initiated in-browser. If this does exist, it'd be interesting to see how they've tackled the security of crypto logic in-browser and compare it to what Cyph has in place for in-browser code signing. Reading the technical docs now (https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/secret_conversations_whitepaper.pdf https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/secret_conv...). Edit: Yep, this seems device-to-device; there doesn't seem to be a web component here. Still useful given how many people use messenger primarily via phone, and I suspect implementation wasn't hard given WhatsApp did it first. It would be neat to see if Messenger and WhatsApp are ever bridged through this.
- evgen 10y agoDevice to device. As you are aware, doing this in a browser in a manner that is not begging for failure is next to impossible.
- Omnipresent 10y agoCould you elaborate on why applying signal protocal in a browser is next to impossible?
- remy_ 10y agoBecause if you serve the library responsible for the encryption from the server, an attacker can perform a man in the middle attack and change that library. This will change when browsers will start implementing the web crypto api. https://www.w3.org/TR/WebCryptoAPI/ https://www.w3.org/TR/WebCryptoAPI/
- eganist 10y agoThe concern is less MITM and more a compromise of the server, but close enough. Check my parallel response to Omnipresent's comment.
- 10y ago
- sandstrom 10y agoAwesome news! They should call it 'private conversations' instead of 'secret conversations' though.
- jswny 10y agoAs much as this is a step in the right direction, you have to specifically enable encryption for individual conversations in Messenger. This implementation seems a little sketchy to me. They really should just encrypt every conversation automatically. Otherwise, encryption only encourages scrutiny.
- soapdog 10y agoIf they end-to-end encryption all the conversations then they won't be able to mine all that data for advertising purposes...
- jswny 10y agoTrue, however my point would be that when you have to selectively enable encryption, it only allows the government to more quickly find out who they consider suspect.
- sleepychu 10y agoTil they have cross-device key sharing, that default would frustrate most of their user base. I'm not sure why they haven't implemented cross-device key share though, maybe it's hard for web?
- Techbrunch 10y agoReasons from not enabling it by default by @alexstamos (CSO @ Facebook): - FBM is multi-device, and we'd like to see E2E usability improve to support this. For now, pick one device and keys never leave it - Secret conversations don't currently support popular features like searching message history, switching devices, voice/video, etc - Hundreds of millions use Messenger from a web browser. No secure way to verify code or store keys without routing through mobile. "We don't want to disrupt people's current experience." Source: https://twitter.com/alexstamos https://twitter.com/alexstamos
- microcolonel 10y agoGiven that I don't have a smartphone, and use messenger.com; yeah, I wouldn't want it to require a mobile.
- lorenzhs 10y agoDownvotes for not owning a smartphone? I think we can agree that not requiring a mobile phone to use a messenger is a nice feature.
- lorenzhs 10y agoSome notes: - Signal does have some multi-device support (the Android and Desktop clients, iOS not yet). I still sometimes have minor issues but overall it works very well. - Signal does include end-to-end encrypted voice calls (what used to be called RedPhone) that also work quite well. It's my go-to "call from Wifi abroad" solution to avoid roaming charges, and also works very well with a good 4G/3G signal - The browser issue seems unsolved as of now, WhatsApp's web thingy (routing through the phone) seems to work quite well but obviously only if the phone is on, and WhatsApp requires a phone while FB messenger doesn't so this isn't an option for them.
- moxie 10y agoSignal Protocol already supports multi-device. We've encouraged them to enable that for Secret Conversations, and hopefully they'll continue to iterate towards support for e2e by default.
- Tharkun 10y agoThis is worse than useless as it doesn't encrypt browser initiated messages and doesn't work cross device. It's yet another attempt to force FB users to switch to the very shady FB Messenger app. I'm still not touching it with a ten foot pole.
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agoHow can I verify my device is indeed running the signal protocol? Messenger is a proprietary app.
- evgen 10y agoIf you need to ask this question then you don't have the skills to verify that your device is running a secure protocol even if I handed you the source code. There are people out there who do have the skills, and you can be certain that they will be reverse-engineering the distributed binaries as soon as possible. I would be extremely surprised if there was not a lightning talks or two at DefCon or BH this year going over the actual on-device code and how closely it hews to the known protocol.
- moxie 10y agoWe've verified that FBM is using the unmodified open source Signal Protocol libraries we distribute at open whisper systems. Hopefully others will verify the same!
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agoOK, I'll wait for independent verification, thanks!
- wmccullough 10y agoI'd pretty much call the creator of the Signal protocol an independent verification. It's not like he's employed by Facebook.
- nileshtrivedi 10y agoCan you share the steps so that more people can do this? What exactly should we look for?
- agd 10y agoIt's worth remembering that this does not protect metadata. It's believed (though not known for sure) that WhatsApp logs metadata for their encrypted messages, and it looks like Facebook do the same here. If you want to resist mass surveillance this is not a good solution.
- igravious 10y agoI think we're going to have to get there (wherever there is: Utopia is a different place for different people) incrementally. It may be unsatisfactory in the short/near term and arguably give people a false sense of security but if we can start educating those non-techies around us bit by bit we may stand a chance at driving mass adoption. Honestly, I'm in no way claiming I can see the future or have even some of the answers, this shit is hard - perhaps even impossible.
- mikeokner 10y agohttps://ricochet.im/ https://ricochet.im/ is a good option if you're looking to minimize the amount of metadata that gets leaked. Desktop only at the moment, though, due to the difficulties of running a Tor hidden service from a mobile device.
- wepple 10y agoI'd argue that WhatsApp and FBM adopting signal have been some of the highest-impact movements toward resistance of mass surveillance, largely due to sheer numbers and accessibility. Sure, there is room for improvement, but having 0.000001% of t he population using an ultra-secure messenger doesn't have the same impact. And hopefully those improvements will happen in time.
- AdmiralAsshat 10y agoGenuinely thrilled to see the Signal protocol adopted for Facebook and Google stuff (albeit optionally). Now if we can just get Microsoft and Amazon to hop on-board, we might actually have a shot at getting this standard to be pervasive.
- thefastlane 10y agowhat's the difference between - Messenger - plain vanilla messages i get in Facebook web site - 'chat' messages, were I to turn on 'chat' in Facebook web site i'm not asking rhetorically. i honestly can't keep up with all the messaging avenues availabale today...
- danielsamuels 10y agoI'm pretty sure they're all the same thing.
- evgen 10y agoIn theory they are the same, but with this recent release there is now a class of messages that are send device-to-device and cannot be viewed via the web interface.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agoI'll use if could communicate with non-Facebook programs implementing Signal protocol.
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agoI've found the blog post where moxie argues against federation: https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ "One of the controversial things we did with Signal early on was to build it as an unfederated service. Nothing about any of the protocols we've developed requires centralization; it's entirely possible to build a federated Signal Protocol based messenger, but I no longer believe that it is possible to build a competitive federated messenger at all."
- danesparza 10y agoSo ... no comment on the choice of picture in the blog post? I hadn't heard of Jules Bonnot, but found the wikipedia article illuminating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Bonnot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Bonnot This seems like it's a subtle endorsement for using Open Whisper Systems for criminal activities. Is it just me, or does that seem like the wrong image to gravitate towards?
- gogopuppygogo 10y agoCould be a fun tip of the hat (so to speak) to the old saying: "When freedom is outlawed, only outlaws will be free."
- OrpheanBeholder 10y agoOWS quite often use anarchist figures and quotes in their example images for blog posts, this is nothing new.
- roflc0ptic 10y agoMoxie Marlinspike, public face of Open Whisper Systems, identifies with anarchism. They include political radicals in most of their images of the application. It's not promoting criminality, except insofar as opposing state repression is criminal. Opposing state repression is the raison d'etre of OWS. I can't speak for them, but I suspect the fact that they're using software to do it is a secondary consideration.
- ge0rg 10y agoNow that the Signal Protocol is deployed in so many different places, is there a proper specification of the (current) protocol? (The old axolotl spec and the GPL implementation don't qualify) What are the licensing conditions / restrictions for using the protocol?
- uph 10y agohttps://github.com/whispersystems/libsignal-protocol-c#license https://github.com/whispersystems/libsignal-protocol-c#licen...
- ge0rg 10y agoSorry, but an implementation is not a specification. It is not only much harder to read, but it is also a moving target. It is borderline impossible to make an independent implementation of the protocol this way. Besides, the fact that it is licensed under the GPL might mean that somebody porting the protocol to a different platform / language might be creating a "derived work" which also must be licensed under the GPL.
- uola 10y agoOne thing I don't understand how Signal implemented by platform providers is supposed to work with lawful interception? Either it doesn't work, in which case we expect law enforcement to just give up the right to wiretap things with a warrant (which seems unlikely) or it does work and is less private than one would expect.
- birdmanjeremy 10y agoIf this is why they are pushing me away from using messenger in the mobile browser, I'm suddenly way less upset.
- r2dnb 10y agoI've read the whole thread and I'm surprised that nobody mentionned how easy it would be for Facebook to store the secret keys. Page 10 of the white paper mentions that there is a remote key stored on Facebook servers which can be used to decrypt the local key. If Facebook still is to be trusted, I don't see what's the deal here. I think that as soon as you put the words "end-to-end" encryption on a marketing material, you have to be ready to open-source your client. This is the cost that companies aiming to be credible can't escape. End-to-end encryption without open-source has no value. It is a waste of energy for the company doing that too - or perhaps a marketing cost.
- Sylos 10y agoYou are correct, but displaying a little message in millions of user-devices which says that it is end-to-end-encrypted, that makes them correcter.
- HappyTypist 10y agoYou've read it wrong. The local key is encrypted with the remote key. It means if someone steals your phone, they still have to pass facebook's authentication (e.g. 2fa) before being able to read your messages.
- jomamaxx 10y ago"End-to-end encryption without open-source has no value. " Not quite. It means nobody is going to be able to read your data other than: A) A nefarious Facebook staffer who has hacked their internal systems B) A government entity with a court order It's a step up from no encryption
- cyphar 10y ago> It means nobody is going to be able to read your data other than: (Assuming it is properly implemented and doesn't have backdoors, which can only be practically verified if the client is free software).
- curiousgal 10y agoI downloaded Signal only to find out it doesn't support phones with dual SIM cards when sending unsecured SMS.
- amq 10y agoI would still use other means of communication for something really private until this becomes the default, because by opting-in I would essentially mark myself as suspicious.
- grandalf 10y agoWhile this is a great step, let's not forget that all FB has to do is track who chooses to use encryption and it can easily use that metadata to aid law enforcement.
- eps 10y agoIs this some sort of elborate trolling? Can an exact match for a FB-provided binary be recreated from the open source code? If it's a No, then it's back to trusting FB to do the right thing and it doesn't make a slightest difference what exact protocol it's running or if the source was peer-reviewed behind closed doors.
- evgen 10y agoAs moxie has stated elsehwere in the comments here, they have confirmed that Messenger is using their open-source libs and I am sure that other people will do a bit of disassembly on the on-device binaries to confirm this fact.
- abcd_f 10y agoIt makes no difference what moxie said or seen. Facebook may have an offshore account set up for moxie, they may simply be showing alternative source, they may have a rigged build system that builds from the patched source, etc. Seeing the source is the first necessary step to establishing any sort of real trust in a compiled binary. You are also gravely mistaken in thinking that other people will take apart the binaries. It took several years for someone to try and verify a TrueCrypt build, which has a far more technical and privacy-minded following than the Facebook app. And even if some altruistic soul will do a binary audit of Messenger, it's all for naught as it's not a sustainable process. Every build needs to be verifiable and the source needs to be routinely peer reviewed for the binaries to be trustworthy. Doubly so in the Facebook's case given the very nature of their business.
- wmccullough 10y agoWhile I agree that we cannot simply take anyone at their word, your example of how the alternative could be pulled off is nothing short of Reynold's wrapped goodness.
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agoIll try Facebook messenger on emulated android without a google account. Not a chance that I share all my phone contacts and everything else in permissions, simply so I can talk privately with my friends that are stuck in Facebook.
- cm3 10y agoCan't you use a phone-only google account which you otherwise don't use for anything else? I haven't used Android, but would you be able to use your real email account in K9, while using a dummy account for the device itself?
- em3rgent0rdr 10y ago> Can't you use a phone-only google account which you otherwise don't use for anything else? Yes, good point! > I haven't used Android, but would you be able to use your real email account in K9, while using a dummy account for the device itself? The problem is that would prevent me from utilizing my android's contact list when emailing. When someone texts me, I like to easily click the name and then click on that contact's email address, which routes me to K9. But your suggested has md thinking that since newer androids support multi-users, I could setup a separate account on my android specifically for Facebook messenger.
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agoTried it out...works!
- dylanops 10y agoTelegram needs you to opt in too, I though?
- schlowmo 10y agoKind of, but you can only "opt-in" by using so called "secure chats". From their FAQ at https://telegram.org/faq#q-so-how-do-you-encrypt-data https://telegram.org/faq#q-so-how-do-you-encrypt-data: "We support two layers of secure encryption. Server-client encryption is used in Cloud Chats (private and group chats), Secret Chats use an additional layer of client-client encryption." It seems like many people (especially users/advocates of telegram) are confused by this, since telegrams marketing sounds like it's fully end-to-end encrypted.
- hatsunearu 10y agoEnd to End as in from Facebook user to Facebook user? This is insane--I thought the whole model of Facebook chat was that they are grabbing all sorts of info from the messages for ads. What the fuck?
- myf 10y agodumb question: how do we (know|prove) a message is encrypted with signal when we use facebook, google allo etc. etc.
- dang 10y agoA user complained that the title was misleading compared to https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/07/messenger-starts-testing-end-to-end-encryption-with-secret-conversations/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/07/messenger-starts-testin..., so we replaced "deploys" with "begins testing" above. If someone suggests a better (i.e. more accurate and neutral) title, we can change it again.
- calinet6 10y agoCan't stop the Signal. Cute.
- jsn117 10y agoFacebook still keeps the messages, and uses the App to track you. Unless the Signal protocol is against FB itself, I don't see how this is news.
- shmapf 10y agoI've been wondering about this for a while. Now both whatsapp and Facebook have this, but surely they have the encryption keys too, or how else would they seamlessly fetch your messages and decrypt them when you get a new phone? If they do, then what's the point?
- danielschonfeld 10y agoI don't know about either anything factual, but I believe it was said that WhatsApp crux in the e2e is the iCloud backup. I believe that's where your old message get restored from. I believe you can also disable that iCloud backup and thus the ability to retrieve those messages with a new phone. End-to-End means encrypted in transport and not saved (in any form that is decryptable) on their servers. To that, I believe whatsapp fulfills their end of the bargain.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- azernik 10y agoWhatsApp for Android doesn't seamlessly fetch and decrypt messages on new installations; you have to set up Google Drive backups from your old phone, and then set up restore from those backups on your new phone.
- saint_fiasco 10y agoLast time I switched phones, Whatsapp did not restore my old message history. Facebook did, but that was before E2E.
- DavidWanjiru 10y agoMe, if I was working at Facebook, I'd have called it "Private Conversations." But hey, what's in a name?
- Sir_Substance 10y agoThat's great! Since they're thinking of rolling out a (relatively) standard protocol, maybe we could have the ability to message our friends on facebook from other services again? Ya know, now that it won't be such a pain to support another protocol and all, since they're doing it anyway.
- free2rhyme214 10y agoFacebook took the same route as Google by providing secret conversations. However you look at this, this is a good step in the right direction. I still prefer Whatsapp and Signal because they both use E2E encryption by default.
- justcommenting 10y agoKudos to moxie for building free alternatives that people (Signal) and companies (Signal Protocol) can freely choose.
- jalami 10y agoIf the messenger is not open sourced, it's trivial for Facebook to add something to the client binary (now, with a flag or at some later date) before the Signal libraries are hit. I'm not saying they are doing so, but without a clear way to verify continually, this is just short of security theater. Then there's Facebook facilitating the key exchange which of course is another blind trust as well as all the juicy meta data. Maybe this will quiet some of the nerves of privacy conscious individuals already on the network, but it seems to me more like a marketing label. I still find it hard to believe so many people trust what they believe to be private communication with close-lipped advertisement companies.
- pg_is_a_butt 10y agohow many times are you going to change the title?? did they release it? did they offer it as option? now they are just starting to test it??? #fuckazuck #pgisabutt
- kalsk 10y agoHow susceptible is this Signal Protocol to a man-in-the-middle attack? Because if Facebook is going to be the man in the middle, then this feature is pointless.
- xnull2guest 10y agoHere Facebook isn't even a man-in-the-middle. They are a 'man-on-the-box'. They get to generate the nonces, keys, etc. It's pointless to add encryption if Facebook is your root of trust.
- znpy 10y agoWhen it was still possible to use the Facebook chat via XMPP I used to use Pidgin as client, and chat securely using the Pidgin OTR plugin. Message appeared in the Facebook page as "encrypted message". I guess you hardly can get better than this.
- awqrre 10y agoBut the Facebook app and Android still have access to unencrypted messages ...
- anotheryou 10y agoI'd be very glad. I keep facebook for the people who don't have any proper IM (and for the in my view much more legit micro blogging on FB). I'm scared of what will be possible to extract from my chat logs in a few years, but the benefit of being able to IM people that only have FB feels greater right now. Biggest problem I see so far is the multiple devices issue, but for most it will be just Desktop and Mobile, so why can't you send each message twice, encrypted separately for each device (automatically, not manually)? Does OTR3 have this feature?
- xnull2guest 10y agoYeah no thanks. I don't trust Facebook with anything. I consider any software touched by Facebook backdoored. They deserve that reputation.
- claudievine 10y agoThoughtful comments , Apropos if people need a IRA Distribution Request Form , my family found a sample document here "http://pdf.ac/4Jb0tV" http://pdf.ac/4Jb0tV".