WhatsHerBucketU.S. officials urge Americans to use encrypted apps amid unprecedented cyberattack
circuitfarmerIt’s probably also good practice to assume that not all encrypted apps are created equal, too. Google’s RCS messaging, for example, says “end-to-end encrypted”, which sounds like it would be a direct and equal competitor to something like Signal. But Google regularly makes money off of your personal data. It does not behoove a company like Google to protect your data.
Start assuming every corporation is evil. At worst you lose some time getting educated on options.
mosiacmangoEnd to end is end to end. Its either “the devices sign the messages with keys that never leave the the device so no 3rd party can ever compromise them” or it’s not.
Signal is a more trustworthy org, but google isn’t going to fuck around with this service to make money. They make their money off you by keeping you in the google ecosystem and data harvesting elsewhere.
It could be end to end encrypted and safe on the network, but if Google is in charge of the device, what’s to say they’re not reading the message after it’s unencrypted? To be fair this would compromise signal or any other app on Android as well
That’s a different threat model that verges on “most astonishing corporate espinoage in human history and greatest threat to corporate personhood” possible for Google. It would require thousands if not tens of thousands of Google employees coordinating in utter secrecy to commit an unheard of crime that would be punishable by death in many circumstances.
If they have backdoored all android phones and are actively exploting them in nefarious ways not explained in their various TOS, then they are exposing themselves to ungodly amounts of legal and regulatory risks.
I expect no board of directors wants a trillion dollars of company worth to evaporate overnight, and would likely not be okay backdooring literally billions of phones from just a fiduciary standpoint.
It would require thousands if not tens of thousands of Google semployees coordinating in utter secrecy
This is usually used for things like the Moon Landing, where so many folks worked for NASA to make it entirely impossible that the landing was faked.
But it doesn’t really apply here. We know for example that NSA backdoors exist in Windows. Were those a concerted effort by MS employees? Does everyone working on the project have access to every part of the code?
It just isn’t how development works at this scale.
Ok but no one is arguing Windows is encrypted. Google is specifically stating, in a way that could get them sued for shitloads of money, that their messaging protocol is E2EE. They have explicitly described how it is E2EE. Google can be a bad company while still doing this thing within the bounds we all understand. For example, just because the chat can’t be backdoored doesn’t mean the device can’t be.
Telegram has its supposedly E2EE protocol which isn’t used by most of Telegram users, but also there have been a few questionable traits found in it.
Google is trusted a bit more than Pavel Durov, but it can well do a similar thing.
And yes, Android is a much larger heap of hay where they can hide a needle.
This is usually used for things like the Moon Landing, where so many folks worked for NASA to make it entirely impossible that the landing was faked.
I think it’s also confirmed by radio transmissions from the Moon received in real time right then by USSR and other countries.