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Why is "unencrypted" considered a good thing? I find it kind of scary especially for a video conference app.
by patrickaljord 16y ago
Why is "unencrypted" considered a good thing? I find it kind of scary especially for a video conference app.
- jallmann 16y agoYour phone calls aren't point-to-point encrypted, either.
- eli 16y agoNo, not end-to-end, but they are encrypted between your phone and the cell tower. It's considerably more secure than an open wifi network.
- sp332 16y agoGSM supports optional encryption, but there's no notification to the user whether a given call is encrypted.
- eli 16y agoYes, but I'm pretty sure all US carriers use it all the time (Though it's true that this opens you up to a potential MITM attack by a well equipped adversary, it's still a far cry from an open wifi network)
- drewcrawford 16y agoRemember all those scandals where politicians sent sexy texts to people they weren't supposed to? Video looks a lot better on the evening news. Cue first FaceTime scandal in 3, 2...
- eli 16y agoI'm pretty sure those are usually leaked, not intercepted.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- ynniv 16y agoIt's much easier to add encryption to an unencrypted channel than it is to interoperate with a fully encrypted one. As a user you might be more interested in encryption as soon as possible, but to the average HN reader an unencrypted standards-based stack is good news!
- mattparcher 16y agoI may be missing something, but isn’t he saying that the FaceTime call, once initiated by a traditional phone call, is encrypted? “Only the call part is Vanilla SIP. The procedure for registering a Facetime user into their servers etc. is all non-SIP, encrypted/ciphered.”