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[-] phoneymouse@lemmy.world 164 points 7 months ago

The US Govt 5 years ago: e2e encryption is for terrorists. The govt should have backdoors.

The US Govt now: Oh fuck, our back door got breached, everyone quick use e2e encryption asap!

[-] Agent641@lemmy.world 49 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The Australian government tried to straight up ban encryption some years ago.

[-] dan@upvote.au 26 points 7 months ago

I laughed so much at that. Encryption is literally just long complicated numbers combined with other long complicated numbers using mathematical formulae. You can't ban maths.

If I remember correctly, there's also a law in Australia where they can force tech companies to introduce backdoors in their systems and encryption algorithms, and the company must not tell anyone about it. AFAIK they haven't tried to actually use that power yet, but it made the (already relatively stagnant) tech market in Australia even worse. Working in tech is the main reason I left Australia for the USA - there's just so many more opportunities and significantly higher paying jobs for software developers in Silicon Valley.

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[-] theherk@lemmy.world 22 points 7 months ago

Different parts of the government. Both existed then and now. There has for a long time been a substantial portion of the government, especially defense and intelligence, that rely on encrypted comms and storage.

[-] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 15 points 7 months ago

FBI has definitely always been anti-encryption

[-] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 15 points 7 months ago

I have never understood why electronic communications are not protected as physical mail

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[-] Maeve@kbin.earth 156 points 7 months ago

Oh gee, forcing companies to leave backdoors for the government might compromise security, everyone. Who'd have thunk it? 🤦

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[-] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 93 points 7 months ago

It'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.

[-] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 28 points 7 months ago

End 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.

[-] EvilBit@lemmy.world 42 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

google isn't going to fuck around with this service to make money

Your honor, I would like to submit Exhibit A, Google Chrome “Enhanced Privacy”.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/how-turn-googles-privacy-sandbox-ad-tracking-and-why-you-should

Google will absolutely fuck with anything that makes them money.

[-] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 22 points 7 months ago

This. Distrust in corporations is healthy regardless of what they claim.

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[-] sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 7 months ago

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

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[-] zergtoshi@lemmy.world 15 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Signal doesn't harvest, use, sell meta data, Google may do that.
E2E encryption doesn't protect from that.
Signal is orders of magnitude more trustworthy than Google in that regard.

[-] renzev@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

There's also Session, a fork of Signal which claims that their decentralised protocol makes it impossible/very difficult for them to harvest metadata, even if they wanted to.Tho I personally can't vouch for how accurate their claims are.

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[-] blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works 76 points 7 months ago
[-] zergtoshi@lemmy.world 19 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yes, like Signal!
Which does not only use end-to-end encryption for communication, but protects meta data as well:

Signal also uses our metadata encryption technology to protect intimate information about who is communicating with whom—we don’t know who is sending you messages, and we don’t have access to your address book or profile information. We believe that the inability to monetize encrypted data is one of the reasons that strong end-to-end encryption technology has not been widely deployed across the commercial tech industry.

Source: https://signal.org/blog/signal-is-expensive/

I haven't verified that claim investigating the source code, but I'm positive others have.

[-] razorozx@lemm.ee 7 points 7 months ago
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[-] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 62 points 7 months ago

Everybodies aunt at thanksgiving:

"I should be fine. I only trust the facebook with my information. Oh, did I tell you? We have 33 more cousins we didn't know about. I found out on 23andme.com. All of them want to borrow money."

[-] obinice@lemmy.world 56 points 7 months ago

Real encrypted apps, ...or just the ones their own government can use to spy on them?

[-] Agent641@lemmy.world 20 points 7 months ago

In the voice of Nelson Muntz: "Nobody spies on our citizens but us!"

[-] Structure7528@lemm.ee 10 points 7 months ago

The reporter mentioned signal, though the gov spokespeople didn't seem to recommend any specific app

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[-] walden@sub.wetshaving.social 47 points 7 months ago

Sounds bad I guess, but the USA has been spying on us for a long time now. Is the bad part that it's China?

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 50 points 7 months ago

Bets on this being directly related to back doors that US spy agencies demand be installed?

[-] treadful@lemmy.zip 34 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

RTFA

The third has been systems that telecommunications companies use in compliance with the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), which allows law enforcement and intelligence agencies with court orders to track individuals’ communications. CALEA systems can include classified court orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which processes some U.S. intelligence court orders.

[-] Kbobabob@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago

So, bet won?

[-] stinky@redlemmy.com 7 points 7 months ago

Wouldn't surprise me. "We're doing this to be helpful to you!" is actually moustached disney villain behavior.

^ similar to the prisoners with cats gimmick. "look how nice we're being to our prisoners" is actually "stop yelling at your bunkmate or we'll take away your cat"

[-] mox@lemmy.sdf.org 33 points 7 months ago

When a whole nation's communications are intercepted by another entity, yes, the bad part is that it's another nation. Especially an adversarial one.

This is not about individuals' personal privacy. It's about things that happen at a much larger scale. For example, leverage for political influence, or leaking of sensitive info that sometimes finds its way into unsecured channels. Mass surveillance is powerful.

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[-] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 39 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

until the republicans ban them so they can find queer kids and pregnant people getting healthcare and people reading books

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[-] mox@lemmy.sdf.org 34 points 7 months ago

End-to-end encryption is indispensable. Our legislators (no matter where we live) need to be made to understand this next time they try to outlaw it.

[-] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago

“So it’s like a filter on the tubes?” - Our legislators

[-] pdxfed@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago

"you wouldn't put a dump truck full of movies on a snowy road without chains on the tires would you?"

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[-] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 26 points 7 months ago

On January 20th: The cyberattack is coming from inside the house!

Dumbfuck and his cronies now have access to PRISM and ECHELON. Again.

[-] A_A@lemmy.world 20 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

What i read [and corrected] from the article :

"The hacking ~~campaign~~ [group], nicknamed [ by Microsoft ] Salt Typhoon ~~by Microsoft~~,
[ this actual campaign of attacks ] is one of the largest intelligence compromises in U.S. history, and not yet fully remediated. Officials in a press call Tuesday [ 2024-12-3 ] refused to set a timetable for declaring the country’s telecommunications systems free of interlopers. Officials had previously told NBC News that China hacked AT&T, Verizon and Lumen Technologies to spy on customers."

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[-] treadful@lemmy.zip 13 points 7 months ago

Guess that confirms that E2EE is effective against these backdoors.

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[-] 2pt_perversion@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Hear me out, maybe we should update pots and sms to have optional end-to-end encryption for modern implementations as well...Optional as backwards compatible and clearly shown as unencrypted when used that way to be clear.

[-] micballin@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

Att won't make money off that unless they offer it as a paid service. No reason to give that away for free and the other cell carriers can just pay off (bribe with campaign contributions) legislators to understand encryption is "too costly to implement at such a scale"

[-] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago

I use a one time pad with all of my contacts. I ask them to eat or burn each page when they are used up.

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[-] Kbobabob@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

Hey you guys remember that big AT&T breach recently?

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this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2024
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