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U.S. officials urge Americans to use encrypted apps amid unprecedented cyberattack (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You are suggesting that "end-to-end" is some kind of legally codified phrase. It just isn't. If Google were to steal data from a system claiming to be end-to-end encrypted, no one would be surprised.

I think your point is: if that were the case, the messages wouldn't have been end-to-end encrypted, by definition. Which is fine. I'm saying we shouldn't trust a giant corporation making money off of selling personal data that it actually is end-to-end encrypted.

By the same token, don't trust Microsoft when they say Windows is secure.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Its a specific, technical phrase that means one thing only, and yes, googles RCS meets that standard:

https://support.google.com/messages/answer/10262381?hl=en

How end-to-end encryption works

When you use the Google Messages app to send end-to-end encrypted messages, all chats, including their text and any files or media, are encrypted as the data travels between devices. Encryption converts data into scrambled text. The unreadable text can only be decoded with a secret key.

The secret key is a number that’s:

Created on your device and the device you message. It exists only on these two devices.

Not shared with Google, anyone else, or other devices.

Generated again for each message.

Deleted from the sender's device when the encrypted message is created, and deleted from the receiver's device when the message is decrypted.

Neither Google or other third parties can read end-to-end encrypted messages because they don’t have the key.

They have more technical information here if you want to deep dive about the literal implementation.

You shouldn't trust any corporation, but needless FUD detracts from their actual issues.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You are missing my point.

I don't deny the definition of E2EE. What I question is whether or not RCS does in fact meet the standard.

You provided a link from Google itself as verification. That is... not useful.

Has there been an independent audit on RCS? Why or why not?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Not that I can find. Can you post Signals most recent independent audit?

Many of these orgs don't post public audits like this. Its not common, even for the open source players like Signal.

What we do have is a megacorp stating its technical implementation extremely explicitly for a well defined security protocol, for a service meant to directly compete with iMessage. If they are violating that, it opens them up to huge legal liability and reputational harm. Neither of these is worth data mining this specific service.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

I'm not suggesting that Signal is any better. I'm supporting absolute distrust until such information is available.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Here's all their independent audits:

https://community.signalusers.org/t/overview-of-third-party-security-audits/13243

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Thank you. I had trouble running down a list.

I do consider Signal to be a more trustworthy org than Google clearly, but find this quibbling about them "maybe putting a super secret backdoor in the e2ee they use to compete with iMessage" to be pretty clear FUD.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Even if we assume they don't have a backdoor (which is probably accurate), they can still exfiltrate any data they want through Google Play services after it's decrypted.

They're an ad company, so they have a vested interest in doing that. So I don't trust them. If they make it FOSS and not rely on Google Play services, I might trust them, but I'd probably use a fork instead.