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> I do not believe that end-to-end encryption means anything at all when the network and the client are the same entity. That's textbook black-and-white thinki

by p-e-w 3y ago

> I do not believe that end-to-end encryption means anything at all when the network and the client are the same entity. That's textbook black-and-white thinking, and it's bullshit. I agree that network and client being controlled by the same entity raises questions, but that doesn't imply that E2EE "doesn't mean anything". A very basic argument that shows why you are wrong: It's much easier for the government to compel a company to hand over data from their servers than it is to compel the company to write and publish a backdoored client. The two scenarios are not equivalent in practice, and this is what matters. Threat models that ignore how the real world operates are useless. Please read up on the concept of "defense in depth", central to modern information security, which is built around the insight that security mechanisms can be valuable even if they don't work perfectly in all circumstances.

sshine 3y ago
> It's much easier for the government to compel a company to hand over data from their servers than it is to compel the company to write and publish a backdoored client. The two scenarios are not equivalent in practice, and this is what matters. Threat models that ignore how the real world operates are useless. There is a very real threat when - Signal servers operate in the US and clients on app stores run by large US companies - Signal can becompelled to not release government-imposed backdoors - Signal stops releasing their open-source version, but patches it arbitrarily in production I've read an interview that there is code related to anti-spam you can't share if you're a large network, because it's an arms race. But because Signal does not make their operations transparent beyond what's absolutely necessary to keep secret wrt. anti-spam, this creates distrust: It leaves a sense that they care more about uptime than trust, because they got big. So it's not the messenger of choice for political dissidents, where your threat model does involve the government to some degree (passive or active).

by p-e-w 3y ago

sshine 3y ago

> It's much easier for the government to compel a company to hand over data from their servers than it is to compel the company to write and publish a backdoored client. The two scenarios are not equivalent in practice, and this is what matters. Threat models that ignore how the real world operates are useless. There is a very real threat when - Signal servers operate in the US and clients on app stores run by large US companies - Signal can becompelled to not release government-imposed backdoors - Signal stops releasing their open-source version, but patches it arbitrarily in production I've read an interview that there is code related to anti-spam you can't share if you're a large network, because it's an arms race. But because Signal does not make their operations transparent beyond what's absolutely necessary to keep secret wrt. anti-spam, this creates distrust: It leaves a sense that they care more about uptime than trust, because they got big. So it's not the messenger of choice for political dissidents, where your threat model does involve the government to some degree (passive or active).