4mo ago

On Reddit's r/privacy, you can no longer criticize Facebook

www.reddit.com /r/privacy/comments/1jh73tp/is_whatsapp_truly_etoe_encrypted/

Original post text

Given the recent detainment of a French person who got detained because he said something bad about the current administration in his WhatsApp messages. It makes me wonder if WhatsApp is truly end to end encrypted as they claimed. How did they even single him out?
As a corollary question, if I were to pass Customs, and if I delete WhatsApp , Reddit etc just before I reach the counter, will they be able to find out that I just deleted the apps minutes ago? I’ll be deleting them from my phone but keep them on the cloud.

59 comments

Do you think they all got instructions by the government what to censor or is it just masks off now?
- It's very easy to take over a subreddit or Lemmy community. Become friendly with the mods, then become a mod, then subtly harass and drive out (from separate accounts) any moderators who are standing in your way, then do whatever you want.
  There is a whole industry of "reputation management" that specializes in distorting the narrative on the internet in favor of your company / your government / whatever. The question is not "are there gangs of Reddit moderators who are bad actors trying to distort the conversation," the question is how many and who they are acting on behalf of.
  Of course, Lemmy copied Reddit's fairly silly and failure-prone model. Why they did that, I don't know. On Twitter / Mastodon-style networks, you can do the same but you at least have to be a little bit sophisticated about it. On Reddit/Lemmy, it is trivial to do if you are patient about it and put some consistent effort into it, and you can make a ton of money if you can do it well.
  
  deleted by creator
  
  Become friendly with the mods, then become a mod, then subtly harass and drive out (from separate accounts) any moderators who are standing in your way, then do whatever you want.
  !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com is still a thing
  !196@lemmy.world attempted takeover lead to !onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone
  So I'm not sure it's that easy
  
  Lemmy has open modlogs. Also, on Lemmy the instance owner can still ultimately override anything a mod does as they control the database.
  That's why it's important to pick the instance for a community carefully.
  
  Thank you that is more likely.
- It’s more likely that Zuck or Musk paid someone to go play moderator. Anyone can become a moderator.
- Astroturfing is when you say something I'm paid not to like
- Or, you know, obvious astroturfing as an excuse to promote alternatives is against the rules.
  The irony of that statement is that it ultimately seems like they are the ones astroturfing here.
Any time you hear about anyone high profile using a chat app - what are they using?
They're using Signal.
There's a reason why they're using Signal; as far as security it's the best one out there. Sure, it's tied to a phone number, but a phone number isn't an identity.
- Phone numbers are heavily tied to a person.
  What signal had going for it is encryption, but that major flaw of tied to phone number makes me doubt everything else they say.
  The phone number link means forward security isn't possible. If ever the encryption is hacked, all your messages could be forfeit by anyone who's simply kept the encrypted data.
  
  The phone number link means forward security isn't possible. If ever the encryption is hacked, all your messages could be forfeit by anyone who's simply kept the encrypted data.
  Can you elaborate on that? Obviously the phone number has privacy implications, but I don't think it can be used to decrypt messages. In the signal protocol, encryption keys are exchanged using ECDH (so wiretapping doesn't work) and periodically rotated (so even knowing the encryption keys at a certain point doesn't let you decrypt messages after that).
  
  https://simplex.chat/
  
  I'm really not sure what the point is other than to track identities after they got rid of SMS. Sure, have an optional number to make calls, but is this some legal requirement to be on app stores or what?
- Phone number is KYC'd
  It is literally an identity and thats why everyone forcing you to use it now.
  
  Phonenumbers are easy to fake, I have two signal accounts without any ties to my person.
- I agree with what other people are saying, the whole phone number requirement of Signal isn't great since, for the most part phone numbers are intended to link to your real world identity. That means they are a very big weak link.
  Also let us not forget that Signal is a centralized service run by one company. They have been very resistant in the past to the idea of decentralization and interoperability. I'm already very skeptical of people who claim to be a savior or hero of Privacy and security lie this, even more so when it's a centralized service. You do know that WhatsApp started out like Signal did right? Look where they are now. You cannot trust a centralized service like Signal, especially one that forces you to provide real world identification. Signal can just as easily be sold and backdoored like WhatsApp was, decentralized services are much more resilient to that kind of thing.
WhatsApp has long been known to not be private
WhatsApp uses client-side scanning, which breaks end-to-end encryption by recording data before it gets encrypted or after it gets decrypted.
The oligarchy knows the whole tech sector is going to implode, and they’re trying to stave it off by curtailing criticism. Cute, and useless.
Go lemmings!
The Customs and Border Protection agents have authority to request a foreign entrant (even with visa) to unlock their phones. They can also deny entry if the entrant doesn’t cooperate.
So they don’t need to have backdoor access to WhatsApp. They can get in through the front.
- My understanding is that this is what happened. They searched his phone, found the messages, then detained him.
Use screenshots instead of links.
- you left out reddit's reason for removing the question
The mods response is odd but also the comments are real. Who is dumb enough to think WhatsApp is safe?
Your post has been removed for being too specific to a company or single product. These days, reddit is heavily astroturfed with fake posts asking questions about companies and services by shills of those same companies and services as a form of fake organic advertising, and by competitors trying to create FUD to benefit their own product or service. This often takes the form or character assassination, libel, and conspiracy theories.
We don’t allow it, and in order to keep it from happening, we remove posts that are too close to astroturfing, corporate comparisons, personal Nd political opinions, ranting diatribes, etc.
If your question was legitimate (asking for pros and cons, potential issues, comparisons, etc), feel free to use subreddits more appropriate such as one for the company or service mentioned, or see privacyguides.org for community comparisons and recommendations to privacy focused open source software.
- Okay that’s absolutely insane. Glad I switched to here even though it’s quieter
- Well that's a way to look at it.
  This def feels like censorship.
  We saw Lemmy.world mods uses these clown tactics when CEo got deposed.
  They just make up reasons for it it seems as they go.
- Redditors in tech subs... Got down voted to oblivion for trying to point out just because Whatsapp uses E2EE, that it doesn't mean meta can't extract the messages from the apps before and after transmission.
Man I just can't get over all this free speech there is on Reddit. Just like how Twitter is legit America's Town Hall, if you're the "right kind" if American.
~~Um... its been the rule for a while, nothing recent. Its just stupid. Somthing like: "Signal vs Briar" is also not allowed because it mentions a specific name of a software/OS/tool/platform/service~~
Nvm
- Nvm, I was thinking of the "No Mention of Specific Alternative OSes" rule
This is nothing.
The mods gave a fair reason and the post wasn’t critical of Meta, only the comments were.
The OP is free to ask that in the WhatsApp subreddit (where there are probably dozens of the exact same question).
- deleted by creator
  
  Maybe they were astroturfing. Read the sidebar for the rules. Are they being applied evenly?
  Search the subreddit. There are plenty of posts critical of Facebook/Meta.

59 comments