That means there’s a software switch that dumps a plaintext copy of a supposedly encrypted message when flipped.
Kinda, sorta, but no, not really. What’s happening is that the recipient is decrypting the message. When you report the message, you include a cleartext copy with your report.
The “switch” you are talking about is in the same app that is doing the decryption. For the bad actor to toggle that “switch”, they would have to control the app.
For the bad actor to toggle that “switch”, they would have to control the app.
Are you talking about physical control? Regardless, it’s closed-source… There is nothing that says they can’t also generate the keys on the other end that they had your devices generate. Outside of open source code that’s buildable from source, they can claim whatever they want about lack of access to switches.
However, doing so would be perpetrating a fraud. If they denied the capability you’re talking about in response to a warrant or subpoena, someone would be in contempt.
I don’t know if any corpo actually cares about such things, but I know that if you or I were to do this, we’d quickly find ourselves broke and possibly in prison.
There is no indication that they can actually acquire the clear text of an E2EE communicatiom. without one of the ends being complicit in the process. There is no evidence of the fraud you refer to.
That doesn’t mean they are telling the truth, merely that they haven’t been proven to have lied. They could release their source code tomorrow. That code could prove you are correct and they are liars. That code could prove that they are correct, and you were wrong.
We don’t have to resort to unfounded claims to justify criticism here. Proving their claims to be unverifiable is more damning than failing to prove they are committing fraud.
Kinda, sorta, but no, not really. What’s happening is that the recipient is decrypting the message. When you report the message, you include a cleartext copy with your report.
The “switch” you are talking about is in the same app that is doing the decryption. For the bad actor to toggle that “switch”, they would have to control the app.
Are you talking about physical control? Regardless, it’s closed-source… There is nothing that says they can’t also generate the keys on the other end that they had your devices generate. Outside of open source code that’s buildable from source, they can claim whatever they want about lack of access to switches.
Technically true.
However, doing so would be perpetrating a fraud. If they denied the capability you’re talking about in response to a warrant or subpoena, someone would be in contempt.
I don’t know if any corpo actually cares about such things, but I know that if you or I were to do this, we’d quickly find ourselves broke and possibly in prison.
But my point is that Meta is committing fraud against the public for advertising WhatsApp as E2EE when it’s not, as per this entire post…
There is no indication that they can actually acquire the clear text of an E2EE communicatiom. without one of the ends being complicit in the process. There is no evidence of the fraud you refer to.
That doesn’t mean they are telling the truth, merely that they haven’t been proven to have lied. They could release their source code tomorrow. That code could prove you are correct and they are liars. That code could prove that they are correct, and you were wrong.
We don’t have to resort to unfounded claims to justify criticism here. Proving their claims to be unverifiable is more damning than failing to prove they are committing fraud.
Hmm… true, fair! ∆