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No, it's not marketing. That's back to the condescending attitude again. The people who use Snapchat have a threat model that includes the ordinary people arou

No, it's not marketing. That's back to the condescending attitude again. The people who use Snapchat have a threat model that includes the ordinary people around them: parents, friends, friends of friends, etc. It does not include governments or the provider of Snapchat itself. Given such a threat model it makes perfect sense to use something like Snapchat - it isn't the result of "marketing" (do services like Instagram and Snapchat advertise at all? I've never seen an advert for them). The reason decentralised crypto-to-the-hilt products never succeed is they misunderstand the threat models ordinary users are using. Most people fear privacy violations by people who know them in some way - not remote faceless programmers an ocean away who, they figure, don't care about them at all.

nickpsecurity 10y ago
"The people who use Snapchat have a threat model that includes the ordinary people around them: parents, friends, friends of friends, etc" Who were downloading apps that could keep Snapchat pics at the time Snapchat users were telling me they went away and nobody could retrieve them. The Snapchat company could also sell them to the same people. That means, due to no attempts to learn about online privacy, they falsely believed that what the marketing told them was true. Or their friends who spread the same propaganda. So, let's recap. They had a false belief due to a lack of knowledge of and apathy for the most basic information on digital privacy of the devices they ran their whole lives through. They believed these incorrect things about their own threat model because they listened to a marketing team or their friends' repetition of a marketing team without due diligence. Even mainstream media was posting articles citing security professionals saying its claims were false. Snapchat users were spreading knowledge on Facebook that someone could keep the Snapchats. They still stayed on the bandwagon. Conclusion: it's entirely accurate, not condescending, to say these people didn't know crap about privacy of the apps they were using and/or were too apathetic to research better options. They continued to do so after lies were revealed since the app was fun and popular. They don't care about privacy in practice. Meanwhile, easy-to-use, private solutions were available and making the media. Hardly any uptake. Speaks for itself.
- zigzigzag 10y ago
  Making sure nobody can screenshot a snap or save it is an entirely client side programming problem, it's got nothing to do with cryptography, so all the other 'easy to use, private solutions' wouldn't be any different in that respect.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    Our point is it's a lie to even tell users that if it's so easy to beat it. Stronger privacy would require a DRMed endpoint where it was a real pain to get those screenshots. Stronger privacy than that is not using the app at all or for anything private. That it's a company whose business is likely to sell out their users is the biggest reason why they don't really get it. Apathy to learning about these fundamental things is what lets such companies get them with false promises.

nickpsecurity 10y ago

"The people who use Snapchat have a threat model that includes the ordinary people around them: parents, friends, friends of friends, etc" Who were downloading apps that could keep Snapchat pics at the time Snapchat users were telling me they went away and nobody could retrieve them. The Snapchat company could also sell them to the same people. That means, due to no attempts to learn about online privacy, they falsely believed that what the marketing told them was true. Or their friends who spread the same propaganda. So, let's recap. They had a false belief due to a lack of knowledge of and apathy for the most basic information on digital privacy of the devices they ran their whole lives through. They believed these incorrect things about their own threat model because they listened to a marketing team or their friends' repetition of a marketing team without due diligence. Even mainstream media was posting articles citing security professionals saying its claims were false. Snapchat users were spreading knowledge on Facebook that someone could keep the Snapchats. They still stayed on the bandwagon. Conclusion: it's entirely accurate, not condescending, to say these people didn't know crap about privacy of the apps they were using and/or were too apathetic to research better options. They continued to do so after lies were revealed since the app was fun and popular. They don't care about privacy in practice. Meanwhile, easy-to-use, private solutions were available and making the media. Hardly any uptake. Speaks for itself.

zigzigzag 10y ago
Making sure nobody can screenshot a snap or save it is an entirely client side programming problem, it's got nothing to do with cryptography, so all the other 'easy to use, private solutions' wouldn't be any different in that respect.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  Our point is it's a lie to even tell users that if it's so easy to beat it. Stronger privacy would require a DRMed endpoint where it was a real pain to get those screenshots. Stronger privacy than that is not using the app at all or for anything private. That it's a company whose business is likely to sell out their users is the biggest reason why they don't really get it. Apathy to learning about these fundamental things is what lets such companies get them with false promises.