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Apple iMessage ‘edit’ and ‘undo send’ buttons risk enabling sex abuse: attorney

13 points by mikece 4y ago

PaulHoule 4y ago
I can't for the life of me understand why anybody sexts.
- djitz 4y ago
  It’s fun
lxgr 4y ago
Screenshots still work and should be about as strong when used as proof in court as messages in the (modifiable) on-device database, no? Besides, other messengers have offered message deletion for a long time now. The real risk to users seems to be the opposite: Message deletion, "view once" functionality etc. can create the (false) impression that text and media sent on these platforms are more ephemeral than they really are: The recipient can always take a screenshot.
- withinboredom 4y ago
  Depends. I once was an expert witness against someone who “lost” the original email they doctored and printed out. DKIM signatures and spam prevention proved my client had an original, undoctored email saying something totally different from the other person. That was fun. But generally, both parties have to accept the screenshot you have is authentic, otherwise you just have some text on a piece of paper which might convince a jury.
  - lxgr 4y ago
    Interesting! But that's precisely my point: iMessage does not have anything comparable to DKIM, as far as I understand (it's using ECDSA internally for authentication, but as far as I know, signatures are not stored to the persistent message database locally). A copy of the local message database "without headers" is no better or worse than a screenshot of a message contained in it. Apple might be able to provide the original ECDSA signature from their server-side logs, but even there, nothing changes with editable/deletable messages: If that capability exists, it will continue existing (unless Apple somehow starts dropping traffic logs specifically for edited/deleted messages).
josephcsible 4y ago
Once again, Apple gives control over phones to people other than their owners, and bad things resulted. Once a message ends up on your phone, nobody but you should be able to do anything to it.

13 points by mikece 4y ago

PaulHoule 4y ago

I can't for the life of me understand why anybody sexts.

djitz 4y ago
It’s fun

lxgr 4y ago

Screenshots still work and should be about as strong when used as proof in court as messages in the (modifiable) on-device database, no? Besides, other messengers have offered message deletion for a long time now. The real risk to users seems to be the opposite: Message deletion, "view once" functionality etc. can create the (false) impression that text and media sent on these platforms are more ephemeral than they really are: The recipient can always take a screenshot.

withinboredom 4y ago
Depends. I once was an expert witness against someone who “lost” the original email they doctored and printed out. DKIM signatures and spam prevention proved my client had an original, undoctored email saying something totally different from the other person. That was fun. But generally, both parties have to accept the screenshot you have is authentic, otherwise you just have some text on a piece of paper which might convince a jury.
- lxgr 4y ago
  Interesting! But that's precisely my point: iMessage does not have anything comparable to DKIM, as far as I understand (it's using ECDSA internally for authentication, but as far as I know, signatures are not stored to the persistent message database locally). A copy of the local message database "without headers" is no better or worse than a screenshot of a message contained in it. Apple might be able to provide the original ECDSA signature from their server-side logs, but even there, nothing changes with editable/deletable messages: If that capability exists, it will continue existing (unless Apple somehow starts dropping traffic logs specifically for edited/deleted messages).

josephcsible 4y ago

Once again, Apple gives control over phones to people other than their owners, and bad things resulted. Once a message ends up on your phone, nobody but you should be able to do anything to it.