• phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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    19 days 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!

      • dan@upvote.au
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        19 days 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.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          19 days ago

          You can try, and in the US, we have export restrictions on cryptography (ITAR restrictions), so certain products cannot be exported. But you can print out the algorithm and carry it on a plane though, so I’m not sure what the point is…

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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          19 days 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.

          Now laugh at banning chemistry and physics (guns and explosives and narcotics). Take a laugh at banning murder too - how do you ban every action leading to someone’s death?

          and the company must not tell anyone about it

          Any “must not tell” law is crap. Unless you signed some NDA knowing full well what it is about.

          Any kind of “national secret disclosure” punishment when you didn’t sign anything to get that national secret is the same.

          It’s an order given to a free person, not a voluntarily taken obligation.

          That said, you can’t fight force with words.

    • theherk@lemmy.world
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      19 days 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.

        • elucubra@sopuli.xyz
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          19 days ago

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

          • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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            19 days ago

            Because physical mail can be easily opened with a warrant. Encryption can be nigh impossible to break. The idea of a vault that cannot be opened no matter how hard you try is something that scares law makers.

          • Astronauticaldb@lemmy.world
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            19 days ago

            Lobbying as well as developmental issues I would assume. I’m no real developer just yet but I’d imagine creating robust security protocols is time-consuming and thinking of every possible vulnerability is not entirely worth it.

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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              19 days ago

              No, security is pretty easy and has been for decades. PGP has been a thing since 1991, and other encryption schemes were a thing long before. ProtonMail uses PGP and SMTP, the latter of which predates PGP by about a decade (though modern SMPT with extensions wasn’t a thing until 1995).

              So at least for email, there’s little technical reason why we couldn’t all use top of the line security. It’s slightly more annoying because you need to trade keys, but email services could totally make it pretty easy (e.g. send the PGP key with the first email, and the email service sends it with an encrypted reply and stores them for later use).

              The reason we don’t is because servers wouldn’t be able to read our email. The legitimate use case here is searching (Tuta solves this by searching on the client, ProtonMail stores unencrypted subject lines), and 20 years ago, that would’ve been a hardship with people moving to web services. Today, phones can store emails, so it’s not an issue anymore, so it probably comes down to being able to sell your data.

              Many to many encryption is more complicated (e.g. Lemmy or Discord), so I understand why chat took a while to be end to end encrypted (Matrix can do this, for example), but there are plenty of FOSS examples today, and pretty much every device has encryption acceleration in the CPU, so there’s no technical reason why it’s impractical today.

              The reason it’s not uniquitous today is because data is really valuable, both to police and advertisers.

          • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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            19 days ago

            Because the USA has been a broken fascist husk ever since the red scare and has been in slow decline ever since.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      19 days ago

      More like 23 years ago when the Patriot Act was signed, and every time it has been re-authorized/renamed since. Every President since Bush Jr. is complicit, and I’m getting most of them in the previous 70-ish years (or more) wish they could’ve had that bill as well.

  • Maeve@kbin.earth
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    20 days ago

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

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      They knew, they were putting backdoors when they needed them.

      Now the new administration will take half of the blame in public opinion (that’s how this works) and also half of the profits, so they won’t investigate too strictly those who’ve done such things.

      But also words don’t cost anything. They can afford to say the obvious after the deed has been done.

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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    20 days 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
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      20 days 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.

        • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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          20 days ago

          Thats a different tech. End to end is cut and dry how it works. If you do anything to data mine it, it’s not end to end anymore.

          Only the users involved in end to end can access the data in that chat. Everyone else sees encrypted data, i.e noise. If there are any backdoors or any methods to pull data out, you can’t bill it as end to end.

          • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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            20 days ago

            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.

            • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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              20 days ago

              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.

              • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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                20 days ago

                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?

                • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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                  20 days ago

                  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.

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                19 days 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.

          • micballin@lemmy.world
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            20 days ago

            They can just claim archived or deleted messages don’t qualify for end to end encryption in their privacy policy or something equally vague. If they invent their own program they can invent the loophole on how the data is processed

            • cheesemoo@lemmy.world
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              20 days ago

              Or the content is encrypted, but the metadata isn’t, so they can market to you based on who you talk to and what they buy, etc.

              • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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                20 days ago

                This part is likely, but not what we are talking about. Who you know and how you interact with them is separate from the fact that the content of the messages is not decryptable by anyone but the participants, by design. There is no “quasi” end to end. Its an either/or situation.

                • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                  19 days ago

                  It doesn’t matter if the content is encrypted in transit if Google can access the content in the app after decryption. That doesn’t violate E2EE, and they could easily exfiltrate the data though Google Play Services, which is a hard requirement.

                  I don’t trust them until the app is FOSS, doesn’t rely on Google Play Services, and is independently verified to not send data or metadata to their servers. Until then, I won’t use it.

              • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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                19 days ago

                Provided they have an open API and don’t ban alternative clients, one can make something kinda similar to TOR in this system, taking from the service provider the identities and channels between them.

                Meaning messages routed through a few hops over different users.

                Sadly for all these services to have open APIs, there needs to be force applied. And you can’t force someone far stronger than you and with the state on their side.

            • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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              20 days ago

              The messages are signed by cryptographic keys on the users phones that never leave the device. They are not decryptable in any way by google or anyone else. Thats the very nature of E2EE.

              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 cant fuck with it, at all, by design. That’s the whole point. Even if they created “archived” messages to datamine, all they would have is the noise.

            • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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              20 days ago

              Exactly. We know corporations regularly use marketing and doublespeak to avoid the fact that they operate for their interests and their interests alone. Again, the interests of corporations are not altruistic, regardless of the imahe they may want to support.

              Why should we trust them to “innovate” without independent audit?

          • ITGuyLevi@programming.dev
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            18 days ago

            End to end doesn’t say anything about where keys are stored, it can be end to end encrypted and someone else have access to the keys.

      • zergtoshi@lemmy.world
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        19 days 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
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          19 days 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.

        • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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          19 days ago

          Agreed. That still doesnt mean google is not doing E2EE for its RCS service.

          Im not arguing Google is trustworthy or better than Signal. I’m arguing that E2EE has a specific meaning that most people in this thread do not appear to understand.

          • zergtoshi@lemmy.world
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            19 days ago

            Sure!
            I was merely trying to raise awareness for the need to bring privacy protection to a level beyond E2EE, although E2EE is a very important and useful step.

      • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        20 days 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

        • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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          20 days ago

          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.

          • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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            20 days ago

            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.

            • Pips@lemmy.sdf.org
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              19 days ago

              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.

              • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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                19 days ago

                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.

            • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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              19 days ago

              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.

          • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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            19 days ago

            How do spyware services used by nation-state customers, like Pegasus, work?

            They use backdoors in commonly used platforms on an industrial scale.

            Maybe some of them are vulnerabilities due to honest mistakes, the problem is - the majority of vulnerabilities due to honest mistakes also carry denial of service risks in widespread usage. Which means they get found quickly enough.

            • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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              19 days ago

              So your stance is that Google is applying self designed malware to its own services to violate its own policies to harvest data that could bring intense legal, financial and reputational harm to it as an org it was ever discovered?

              Seems far fetched.

              • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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                19 days ago

                Legal and financial - doubt it. Reputational - counter-propaganda is a thing.

                I think your worldview lags behind our current reality. I mean, even in 30-years old reality it would seem a bit naive.

                Also you’ve ignored me mentioning things like Pegasus, from our current, not hypothetical, reality.

                • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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                  19 days ago

                  So yes.

                  You think a nearly trillion dollar public company has an internal division that writes malware against flaws in its own software in order to harvest data from its own apps. It does this to gain just a bit more data about people it already has a lot of data on, because why not purposely leave active zero days in your own software, right?

                  That is wildly conspiratorial thinking, and honestly plain FUD. It undermines serious, actual privacy issues the company has when you make up wild cabals that are running double secret malware attacks against themselves inside Google.

      • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.social
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        19 days ago

        End to end could still - especially with a company like Google - include data collection on the device. They could even “end to end” encrypt sending it to Google in the side channel. If you want to be generous, they would perform the aggregation in-device and don’t track the content verbatim, but the point stands: e2e is no guarantee of privacy. You have to also trust that the app itself isn’t recording metrics, and I absolutely do not trust Google to not do this.

        They make so of their big money from profiling and ads. No way they’re not going to collect analytics. Heck, if you use the stock keyboard, that’s collecting analytics about the texts you’re typing into Signal, much less Google’s RCS.

      • CatLikeLemming@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        19 days ago

        Note that it doesn’t mean metadata is encrypted. They may not know what you sent, but they may very well know you message your mum twice a day and who your close friends are that you message often, that kinda stuff. There’s a good bit you can do with metadata about messages combined with the data they gather through other services.

      • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
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        19 days ago

        End to end matters, who has the key; you or the provider. And Google could still read your messages before they are encrypted.

        • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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          19 days ago

          You have the key, not the provider. They are explicit about this in the implementation.

          They can only read the messages before encryption if they are backdooring all android phones in an act of global sabotage. Pretty high consequences for soke low stakes data.

          • ITGuyLevi@programming.dev
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            18 days ago

            I’m pretty sure the key is stored on the device, which is backed up to Google. I cannot say for sure if they do or don’t backup your keyring, but I feel better not using it.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          19 days ago

          Yup, they can read anything you can, and send whatever part they want through Google Play services. I don’t trust them, so I don’t use Messenger or Play services on my GrapheneOS device.

      • renzev@lemmy.world
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        19 days ago

        Of course our app is end-to-end encrypted! The ends being your device and our server, that is.

        • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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          19 days ago

          That’s literally what zoom said early in the pandemic.

          Then all the business in the world gave them truck loads of money, the industry called them out on it, and they hired teams of cryptographers to build an actual e2ee system

      • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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        19 days ago

        They do encrypt it and they likely dont send the messages unencrypted.

        Likely what’s happening is they’re extracting keywords to determine what you’re talking about (namely what products you might buy) on the device itself, and then uploading those categories (again, encrypted) up to their servers for storing and selling.

        This doesn’t invalidate their claim of e2ee and still lets them profit off of your data. If you want to avoid this, only install apps with open source clients.

        • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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          19 days ago

          E2EE means a 3rd party cant extract anything in the messages at all, by definition.

          If they are doing the above, it’s not E2EE, and they are liable for massive legal damages.

          • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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            19 days ago

            Thats not what it means. It means that a third party cannot decrypt it on their servers.

            Of course if the “third party” is actually decrypting it on your device, then they can read the messages. I dont know why this is not clear to you.

    • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
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      19 days ago

      If its not Open Source and Audited yearly, its compromised. Your best option for secure comms is Signal and Matrix.

    • s_s@lemm.ee
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      19 days ago

      End-to-end encryption matters if your device isn’t actively trying to sabotage your privacy.

      If you run Android, Google is guilty of that.

      If you run Windows in a non-enterprise environment Microsoft is guilty of that.

      If you run iOS or MacOS, Apple is (very likely) guilty of that.

    • zergtoshi@lemmy.world
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      19 days 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.

  • katy ✨@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    19 days 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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          19 days ago

          There’s no fediverse replacement for Grindr yet? I’m honestly surprised.

          There should at least be an OSS one though right? Like an OpenGrindr? Or a LibreGrindr?

          • Some Universal Friend(s)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            19 days ago

            We were looking into federated+floss MatchGroup alternatives last week, and didn’t find much of anything.
            Most compelling was that some people are using matrix spaces to facilitate dating/hookups, but I imagine those spaces have similar pitfalls to Discord “dating”.
            Something akin to OkCupid back when it was owned by Humor Rainbow would be pretty popular, imo.

        • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          19 days ago

          It let you send videos to someone over the grindr limit.

          Please don’t ask how I know that grindr only let you send 10 short videos per day.

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      19 days ago

      All that happens under Dems, too. Stop giving them a pass.

      Y’all keep hitting that downvote button. I’d like to know how many of you are ok with fascism when it’s a Dem at the helm.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        19 days ago

        Yup. The Apple-FBI encryption dispute started under Obama, as did the Snowden leak.

        Neither party is particularly pro-encryption, because governments in general see encryption by the public a hurdle for their operations (i.e. you don’t need encryption if you have nothing to hide).

        Encryption isn’t a partisan issue, and my understanding is that both major parties suck about equally on this issue.

        • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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          19 days ago

          It’s a wonder they’re not also trying to outlaw printing presses at this point. They openly believe that we are not entitled to private conversations.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            19 days ago

            It seems we’re moving that direction. Physical media in video games is becoming less and less common, more and more stores are digital only (and Google made a deal w/ Mastercard to get that data), and ebooks are likely to overtake physical books in the near-ish future.

            Guess where all that data ends up? The government can just pay retailers to get transaction data, so if the police wants to dig up dirt on you, it’s easier than ever.

            That’s pretty messed up IMO, and I’m not happy with this trend given where privacy protections are at these days…

            • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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              19 days ago

              Yep. We need a very strict law to prevent the government from partnering with private companies to get around the fourth amendment. The third party doctrine has obliterated our privacy rights.

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                19 days ago

                Agreed. If there’s anything we should collectively push for, it’s a constitutional recognition to a right to privacy. That’s what Roe v Wade was based on, and it was overturned because it wasn’t constitutionally defensible. The 4th amendment sadly isn’t sufficient, we need to take it a step further.

                • futatorius@lemm.ee
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                  19 days ago

                  The Ninth Amendment, if actually followed, would put the burden on the government to prove that something was not a right, rather than just denying it because it wasn’t enumerated in the Constitution. The current Supreme Court has directly contradicted the Ninth by claiming that only enumerated rights are really rights. Except when they make up new ones like corporate personhood.

      • Eezyville@sh.itjust.works
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        19 days ago

        The Snowden leaks came out when Obama was president. Obama was the one who said, “The only people who don’t want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide”. The republicans and democrats are the same fucking people.

        • MJKee9@lemmy.world
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          19 days ago

          Only if you look at it in the most general, limited, pov. Are they the same people on corporate greed? Not all, but mostly yes. Are they the same people on encryption? Yes. Are they the same on human rights? Absolutely fucking not. If the only thing important for you is encryption, voting isn’t going to change the government’s policy decisions. However, if things other than encryption and corporate greed are important, then voting for a Republican is voting against your interests. History is filled with people who can’t see past their own fucking biases and look out for the greater interest… So you have a lot of historical company.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            19 days ago

            Are they the same on human rights? Absolutely fucking not.

            The outcome of the 2024 election, according to the liberal pundits, was that trans-rights and Palestinian liberties cost Harris the election.

            • MJKee9@lemmy.world
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              19 days ago

              I’m just responding to your comment. If you were only talking about encryption, then maybe word your comment more clearly… Especially if you want to cast aspersions towards other about staying on topic.

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                19 days ago

                The post is about encrypted apps and cyberattacks not human rights violation. By default the topic of conversation is the post.

            • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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              19 days ago

              Taking a narrow myopic view leads to single issue voting, and that has caused ridiculous levels of damage to the public.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          19 days ago

          The republicans and democrats are the same fucking people.

          In many cases, literally. From Michael Bloomberg and Liz Cheney to Donald Trump and Joe Manchin, the number of cross-overs and turn-coats who end up getting into leadership in their opponent’s parties is absolutely crazy. The Nixonian Southern Strategy did one thing brilliantly. It completely crossed the wires of the partisan voter for three generations to the benefit of the corporate oligarchs who get to play both ends against the middle.

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            19 days ago

            It goes on long before that. The Dixiecrats were as conservative as the Republicans, and more racist than some Republicans.

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        19 days ago

        All that happens under Dems, too

        Fucking what? Which democrats are banning books and putting together lists of trans children?

        And no, I’m not a fan of the DNC, I’m just not a fucking dishonest piece of shit.

          • irreticent@lemmy.world
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            19 days ago

            And there it is. Blame the Democrats for not stopping the Republicans from doing their misdeeds.

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              Of course. Because they pretend they will stop the Republicans, and then they fund and vote for the Republican plans.

              Democrats are a right-wing party intended to absorb and dispel leftist energy in order to prevent change and reform. They’re protecting Republicans by design. Absolutely blame them for that.

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        19 days ago

        As if most of the legal provisions for widespread surveillance were not done under Clinton administration.

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        19 days ago

        Those downvoting need to learn about the PATRIOT act and FISA “courts”.

        • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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          Those downvoting aren’t the type of people who enjoy challenging their worldview. They won’t look at shit.

      • zzx@lemmy.world
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        19 days ago

        Dumb people are down voting you despite the fact that you’re 1000000% correct.

        Leftists need to stop defending the Democratic party so hard, it’s making them look like neo liberals

        • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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          19 days ago

          Wait what? You know that leftists dislike Democrats, right?

          Are you really not aware they are two different things?

          • zzx@lemmy.world
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            I’m aware yet I’ve been seeing so many so-called lefties going crazy for the DNC.

            I think the desperation and need to defeat Trump has led to a lot of “blind acceptance” of Democrats

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            You know that leftists dislike Democrats, right?

            They’re classic Frienamies. Every two years, they hold their noses while screaming “I hate this! I hate this! I hate you all!” and pull the lever for the party. Then the party either wins, thanks to all the Michael Bloombergs and Liz Cheneys who guided the party successfully to the right. Or the party loses, thanks to all the civil rights activists and environmentalists and train lovers who made Whitey McDickweasel look like a Communist.

            Leftists are the Dems’ most loyal voters and their most bitter enemies.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          19 days ago

          Leftists need to stop defending the Democratic party

          The joke of it is you’re either with the Democratic Party or you’re a hyper-authoritarian anti-democratic Russia/China loving Tankie. You will eat your police state and you will like it, because otherwise the Bigger Fascists will win.

        • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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          19 days ago

          It’s just treated like team sports for so many people. It doesn’t matter what the team does, it’s offensive to them to criticize it at all.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    20 days 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
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    20 days ago

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

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    20 days 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?

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        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.

      • stinky@redlemmy.com
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        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
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      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.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      Yes. Wars happen. Even corrupt politicians are nicer when their control base is inside the country.

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    19 days ago

    From RFC 2804:

    • The IETF believes that adding a requirement for wiretapping will make affected protocol designs considerably more complex. Experience has shown that complexity almost inevitably jeopardizes the security of communications even when it is not being tapped by any legal means; there are also obvious risks raised by having to protect the access to the wiretap. This is in conflict with the goal of freedom from security loopholes.

    https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc2804/

    This was written in 2000 in response to US government requests to add backdoors to voice-over-IP (VoIP) standards.

    It was recognized 25 years ago that having tapping capabilities is fundamentally insecure.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      19 days ago

      You don’t need technical knowledge to see the problem.

      If you live in an apartment and your landlord has a master key, then all an attacker needs to do is get that master key. In an apartment complex, maybe that’s okay because who’s going to break in to the landlord’s office? But on the internet, tons of people are trying to break in every day, and eventually someone will get the key.

      Even for the landlord, I’d rather them have a copy of my key than a master key, because that way they’d need to steal my key specifically.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      It was always recognized.

      Every time I go to the Interwebs and read what people have to say on security, it’s always the same high horse absolutism.

      I’ve read Attwood’s book on Asperger’s syndrome a couple weeks ago. There such absolutism was mentioned as a natural trait of aspies, but one that, when applied to social power dynamics or any military logic, gets you assroped in jail.

      People who want to spy on you or read all your communications understand too that general security suffers, but just not having that power is out of question for them, and also with the power they already have the security effect on them personally won’t be too big.

      It’s a social problem of the concept of personal freedom being vilified in the Western world via association with organized crime, terrorism, anarchism, you get the idea.

      It’s not hard to see that the pattern here is that these things are chosen because they challenge state’s authority and power, because, well, subsets of what’s called organized crime and terrorism that can be prevented by surveillance are not what people generally consider bad, and anarchism is not something bad in any form.

      What’s more important, people called that do not need to challenge the state if the state is functional, as in - representative, not oppressive and not a tool for some groups to hurt other groups.

      As we’ve seen in all the world history, what’s called organized crime and what’s called terrorism are necessary sometimes to resolve deadlocks in a society. It has never happened in history that a society could function by its formalized laws for long without breaking consistency of those. And it has never happened that an oppressed group\ideology\movement would be able to make its case in accordance with the laws made by its oppressor.

      Why I’m typing all this - it’s not a technical problem. It’s a problem of bad people who should be afraid not being afraid and thus acting, and good people who should be afraid not being afraid and thus not acting.

  • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
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    20 days 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.

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        20 days 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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        19 days ago

        Ew.

        Think of it like this:

        • no encryption - sending a postcard
        • client to sever encryption - dropping off the postcard at the post office instead of the mailbox
        • end to end encryption - security envelope in the mailbox
        • read receipts - registered mail

        Hopefully you’re less wrong now Mr/Mrs legislator.

  • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
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    19 days ago

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

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

    • overload@sopuli.xyz
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      19 days ago

      I go one further and also use public/private key pairs that my acquaintances must use to decrypt the scrambled letters I mail them.

    • spyd3r@sh.itjust.works
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      19 days ago

      I use some decoder ring I found in a cereal box, it’s totally secure.

      B̷̡̡̢̧̺̩̝̤̜̪̰͖̻̗͇͓͙͍̦̹̹͚̠̲͔͕̫̤͎̳̱̦̜̖̤͙̎͌͑̂̿̋͐͂̉͜͜͜ͅe̸̺̠̰̋̐͑͒͗͑̑͂̿͑͘͠͝ ̴̡̨̢̨̨̡̯̺̤̝͇̠̯͚͇̰͈͙͍͕̖͕͖̜̹̰̗͙̈̍̄͂́͜ṣ̵̡̞̰͎̝͙͚̘̞̓̊̿̂̉͐͐̐̀̍̂́͋̏́̚͘͠͠ư̴̧̧̨̧̝͙̰̗͓͉͚͇̻͇̝͖̞͙̤͙̞͔̯͈̙̗̰̖̺̼͕͇̗̂̎̐̅͊̔͋̄̿̅̎̍͂̏͘̚ͅṛ̶͙͙͚͖̭̆̄̎̔̾͛̏̈̽͌̎͋̿̈̌̃̃͑̑̏̐̽̎̉́̊̿̆̌̕͜͝͠e̵̛̝̱͓̐̂͊̀̓̑̈́̒̓́̂̿̒̒̔͌̆͌̎͆̓͂̂̏͆̑͜͝͝ ̶̧̧̳̮̬̤̱̯͚̜̜͔̞̰̠̼̩̘͖̹͕̥͔̰͎͖̩̠͇̭̭̺̮̔͊͛̉͐͗͛͌̓̂͐̇̔̑̓̐̇̀̅̿̿̃͛̈́̔̏͛̓͂̏̕̚̕͜͠͠ͅͅͅͅţ̵͔͂̋͌̋͊͗̇ơ̷̘̱͙̝͖͍̪̗̮̫͉͖̪͉̯͙͛̋̾̑͛̇́̑̒̓͐̀̇̓͒̾͛͆̾͗̒̕̚͘͜͝ ̶̧̡̢̭̥͚̱̲̮͙̠̼͉͖̞̩̞̰̠͍̭̭͖͖̻̜͖͇̬͎̮͙̦͗͌̈̌̍̔̋̔̈́̈́̃̍̓͌͒̉̓͐̓̏̓̃̇̅́̐̃̂̚̕͜͝͝d̸̢̨̢̧̢͔͚̼̩̮͖̭̥̮͓̭͇͖̞̰̞̰̋̓̊̈́̈̐̄̆͊̈͑̓̉͝͠ͅŗ̵̲͓̠̮͉̹͍̰̟̘̄̈́̈́̂̀̆͗̔̓̔̐̀̍̓̄̾̋͋̆̈́̓͐͊͒͋͂̓̽͌̂̊͂̔͋̓͌͐̈́̓͠͝ĩ̴̛̛̝̹͓͚̦̱̰̫̌̋͌̏̒́̇̂̅̎̄͒̏̎̈͊͊̽͘̕͜͝͝͝͠n̴̨̡̡̛͚͖̼̖̦͔̬̩̝̞͔̥͖̫̮͎̻͔̪͍͖̣̻̯͉̝̜͓̐̏̾̋̂͛́̍̄̿̔͛̉̾̏̆̍͋͒̂́̽̆͐̋̈͆̊̈̈́̽̔̏̏̎̕̚͘̚͠k̴̡̭̙̼̻̟͔̏̂ ̵̨͓̺̲͇͔̪͇͓̥̰͈̲͊́̂́͋̊̀̾̌͋̉͑̍̿̆̊͐͆̏̑̑͛̾̀̀̏͆̽́͝͠ỵ̶̡̝̺̙͇̪̮͚̣̓̍̐̄̉̇̀͋̔̀̂͒̾̋͘ǫ̴͇̝̤͕̮̺̦̼̪̯̟̼̳͙̼̃̈́́͗̓̊͑́̾̈́͘̕͜͝͠ͅͅų̷̢̛̭̟̭̖̟͇̪̦̪̳̯̟̬͉̬͉͎̫͎̮̜̠͔̝̜̭̪̤͆̆͋̉̆̓̽̋̀̆̌͝r̵̨̡̳͈̝͈̖͈̻̺̮͖̻͓͓͇̩͖̬̣̪͙̗̥̯̍̍͂͂́̑ͅ ̷̢̧̢̧̛̛̖̹͉̳͚̞̟̻̮̟͙̥̥͓͙̻̩̙̈̓͆͌̈́͊́̈́̎̑͗̑̆̀̈́͆̏ͅƠ̴̛̛̱̰̬̲̼̹̬̰̮͓̜̐̔̈́̾̓͆̔͂̂͂̂̓̏̾͐͌͘̕͘͝͝͝v̴̛̤̝̹͙̩͌̾̾̒͋͐͂̍̽̈́͛̎̆̋̓̔̀́̍͑͌͌͂͆̈̚̚̚͘͜͝͝ͅå̶̡̢̹̻͙͗͒̌̓̑̋̂̉̿̌̋͋̆͋͋̈́̋̎̀͝͝ĺ̶̡̨̨̨̛̻͙̘̖͍̥̝̺͔͙̱̼͙̱̀͌̃̍́͊̉͑̐ͅt̶̡̛͎͕̥͉̙̰̫̲̺̩̘̜̖͔̝̜̤̮͙̳̻̮̠̦́̌͌̍̑̃̿̔͒͗̑̏̎̿̉̀̀͊̽̃̽͌͆̏͗͗̋̈́̔̉́̒͗̑̊͜͝ͅį̴̡̢̡̪̥͉̩̯͎̩̤̺̙̩̳̘͓̣̮̰͔̯̘̰̖̪̻͉̣̖̬̩͉̦̃̂̍͜ͅͅņ̵̡̢̧̢̯̠͍͖͔̬̜̥̗̜͈̮͖̗̺̳̱̣̟̦̗͉̮̥̏̿͒̏͆̔̀͐̉̀͗͋͐͌͒̀́̿́͗͂́̏̂͊̑̅͝͝͝͝ȩ̶̨̡̨̫͉̱͉̦̫͇̪̼̰̺̩̘̼̬̝̘̥͖͎̬̺̀̓͋̄̂̉͝͝

  • A_A@lemmy.world
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    20 days 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.”

  • 2pt_perversion@lemmy.world
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    20 days 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
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      20 days 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”

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      19 days ago

      You mean RCS?

      I’ll raise you one better: use Signal (or simplex.chat if you’re cool). Google and Apple control RCS, and carriers can still sniff metadata. Cut both groups out with a proper messenger.