Is this actually new in iOS 8? I thought this has been the design of iMessage from the beginning -- namely that Apple does not have the decryption keys. What A

Is this actually new in iOS 8? I thought this has been the design of iMessage from the beginning -- namely that Apple does not have the decryption keys. What Apple does have is the directory of recipient public keys that your device should use to encrypt its messages. (Background: iMessage encrypts each message separately for every recipient device, which shows just how far Apple went to protect key security. Not only does Apple not have the keys, private keys never have to be exchanged among devices ever.) But technically speaking -- I have no idea if they actually do this -- that gives them a way to insert a "wiretap" of sorts in the form of an additional, silent recipient that you don't know about. Think of it as adding another device to your iCloud account, only it's not yours. Still, this could at least be discovered by monitoring the size of the outgoing data to see if it matches the expected number of recipients.