4 ms·

You're being facetious here with the strawman; this is clearly a choice in the protocol that exposes something that is not exposed by, say, Signal. Even if it i

You're being facetious here with the strawman; this is clearly a choice in the protocol that exposes something that is not exposed by, say, Signal. Even if it is a deliberate choice, it doesn't necessarily make it not a flaw; as I said, it depends on your threat model. Anyway, I don't think it's a reasonable choice. How any times do people change phones?!? Even if you're rich you don't do that more than once a year. It doesn't happen often enough for the user to become "accustomed" to warnings and simply click through them.

idlewords 10y ago
I'm not joking here, or making a strawman argument. You could make Signal show white-on-white, so the recipient had to select text to see it. But you don't, because shoulder surfing is not the threat model for Signal. And individually targeted MITM attacks by governments that can take over a server are not the threat model for WhatsApp.
- admax88q 10y ago
  What's the point of E2E encryption if MITM attacks are not in the threat model?
  - CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
    The point of WhatsApp isn't E2E Encryption. The point of WhatsApp is reliability. The E2EE was an extra. If it even works to enhance the privacy of 0.1% of users, it's helped a million people in ways that SMS has not.
    - admax88q 10y ago
      Adding E2E encryption and advertising based upon that if you're not taking it seriously is a disservice to the users.
- RodericDay 10y ago
  You know, I've always liked your writing a whole lot. However your behavior in reaction to this story seems bizarre to me. I see all these people come in defense of WhatsApp using bizarre statistics about domestic violence (big correlation with hacking?). Then someone (tptacek?) was going around saying not a single crypto expert disagrees with their consensus (trucking all over the original source, Tobias Boelter). Then there are all these jokey "Is WhatsApp Backdoored Yet?" expressions. It's a frenzy. There seem to be a whole bunch of people who take The Guardian article as "omg, after this article, people will drop WhatsApp and use something like Messenger instead!". Which, sure enough, maybe a common scenario, and worse. However, the article was obviously meant to push people outside of Facebook gardens, and into a more secure alternative. It's supposed to make you go "WhatsApp is unsafe, I will use Signal instead". One of those "trade-offs" you're talking about in the first place, just like the security vs. purity one. In this case, erring on the side of activism. As a sideline observer with very little crypto knowledge, I think Boelter presented an interesting case, while the anti-Guardian crowd reacted like crazy people, pulling fire alarms, hurling insults, and Streisand-effect-ing the story into a huge controversy. I mean, the EFF article itself, in defense of WhatsApp and against The Guardian, says: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/google-launches-key-transparency-while-tradeoff-whatsapp-called-backdoor https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/google-launches-key-tr... > If you are a high-risk user whose safety might be compromised by a single revealed message, you may want to consider alternative applications. As we mention in our Surveillance Self-Defense guides for Android and iOS, we don't currently recommend WhatsApp for secure communications. It goes on to qualify this statement by saying that's a rare threat model. However, that right there, is enough to justify the original piece. The idea, I think, is that everyone should be on something like Signal, so that merely using Signal wouldn't be taken as a reason for suspicion. If you disagree, your argument could surely be better than jokes about white text. Just my two cents as a nobody.
  - idlewords 10y ago
    I'm not sure why you're taking the white text example as a joke.
    - RodericDay 10y ago
baybal2 10y ago
if a company can snoop your messages on an "encrypted" channel, it is a vulnurability. silly lamer
- Ar-Curunir 10y ago
  ? I'm not defending WhatsApp...
- sctb 10y ago
  Please comment civilly and substantively on HN or not at all, and please leave name-calling out altogether. https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

idlewords 10y ago

I'm not joking here, or making a strawman argument. You could make Signal show white-on-white, so the recipient had to select text to see it. But you don't, because shoulder surfing is not the threat model for Signal. And individually targeted MITM attacks by governments that can take over a server are not the threat model for WhatsApp.

admax88q 10y ago
What's the point of E2E encryption if MITM attacks are not in the threat model?
- CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
  The point of WhatsApp isn't E2E Encryption. The point of WhatsApp is reliability. The E2EE was an extra. If it even works to enhance the privacy of 0.1% of users, it's helped a million people in ways that SMS has not.
  - admax88q 10y ago
    Adding E2E encryption and advertising based upon that if you're not taking it seriously is a disservice to the users.
RodericDay 10y ago
You know, I've always liked your writing a whole lot. However your behavior in reaction to this story seems bizarre to me. I see all these people come in defense of WhatsApp using bizarre statistics about domestic violence (big correlation with hacking?). Then someone (tptacek?) was going around saying not a single crypto expert disagrees with their consensus (trucking all over the original source, Tobias Boelter). Then there are all these jokey "Is WhatsApp Backdoored Yet?" expressions. It's a frenzy. There seem to be a whole bunch of people who take The Guardian article as "omg, after this article, people will drop WhatsApp and use something like Messenger instead!". Which, sure enough, maybe a common scenario, and worse. However, the article was obviously meant to push people outside of Facebook gardens, and into a more secure alternative. It's supposed to make you go "WhatsApp is unsafe, I will use Signal instead". One of those "trade-offs" you're talking about in the first place, just like the security vs. purity one. In this case, erring on the side of activism. As a sideline observer with very little crypto knowledge, I think Boelter presented an interesting case, while the anti-Guardian crowd reacted like crazy people, pulling fire alarms, hurling insults, and Streisand-effect-ing the story into a huge controversy. I mean, the EFF article itself, in defense of WhatsApp and against The Guardian, says: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/google-launches-key-transparency-while-tradeoff-whatsapp-called-backdoor https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/google-launches-key-tr... > If you are a high-risk user whose safety might be compromised by a single revealed message, you may want to consider alternative applications. As we mention in our Surveillance Self-Defense guides for Android and iOS, we don't currently recommend WhatsApp for secure communications. It goes on to qualify this statement by saying that's a rare threat model. However, that right there, is enough to justify the original piece. The idea, I think, is that everyone should be on something like Signal, so that merely using Signal wouldn't be taken as a reason for suspicion. If you disagree, your argument could surely be better than jokes about white text. Just my two cents as a nobody.
- idlewords 10y ago
  I'm not sure why you're taking the white text example as a joke.
  - RodericDay 10y ago

baybal2 10y ago

if a company can snoop your messages on an "encrypted" channel, it is a vulnurability. silly lamer

Ar-Curunir 10y ago
? I'm not defending WhatsApp...
sctb 10y ago
Please comment civilly and substantively on HN or not at all, and please leave name-calling out altogether. https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html