Is Facebook Planning on Backdooring WhatsApp? (schneier.com) 131
Bruce Schneier: This article points out that Facebook's planned content moderation scheme will result in an encryption backdoor into WhatsApp: "In Facebook's vision, the actual end-to-end encryption client itself such as WhatsApp will include embedded content moderation and blacklist filtering algorithms. These algorithms will be continually updated from a central cloud service, but will run locally on the user's device, scanning each cleartext message before it is sent and each encrypted message after it is decrypted. The company even noted. that when it detects violations it will need to quietly stream a copy of the formerly encrypted content back to its central servers to analyze further, even if the user objects, acting as true wiretapping service. Facebook's model entirely bypasses the encryption debate by globalizing the current practice of compromising devices by building those encryption bypasses directly into the communications clients themselves and deploying what amounts to machine-based wiretaps to billions of users at once."
Once this is in place, it's easy for the government to demand that Facebook add another filter -- one that searches for communications that they care about -- and alert them when it gets triggered. Of course alternatives like Signal will exist for those who don't want to be subject to Facebook's content moderation, but what happens when this filtering technology is built into operating systems? Separately The Guardian reports: British, American and other intelligence agencies from English-speaking countries have concluded a two-day meeting in London amid calls for spies and police officers to be given special, backdoor access to WhatsApp and other encrypted communications. The meeting of the "Five Eyes" nations -- the UK, US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand -- was hosted by new home secretary, Priti Patel, in an effort to coordinate efforts to combat terrorism and child abuse.
UPDATE: 8/2/2019 On Friday technologist Bruce Schneier wrote that after reviewing responses from WhatsApp, he's concluded that reports of a pre-encryption backdoor are a false alarm. He also says he got an equally strong confirmation from WhatsApp's Privacy Policy Manager Nate Cardozo, who Facebook hired last December from EFF. "He basically leveraged his historical reputation to assure me that WhatsApp, and Facebook in general, would never do something like this."
Once this is in place, it's easy for the government to demand that Facebook add another filter -- one that searches for communications that they care about -- and alert them when it gets triggered. Of course alternatives like Signal will exist for those who don't want to be subject to Facebook's content moderation, but what happens when this filtering technology is built into operating systems? Separately The Guardian reports: British, American and other intelligence agencies from English-speaking countries have concluded a two-day meeting in London amid calls for spies and police officers to be given special, backdoor access to WhatsApp and other encrypted communications. The meeting of the "Five Eyes" nations -- the UK, US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand -- was hosted by new home secretary, Priti Patel, in an effort to coordinate efforts to combat terrorism and child abuse.
UPDATE: 8/2/2019 On Friday technologist Bruce Schneier wrote that after reviewing responses from WhatsApp, he's concluded that reports of a pre-encryption backdoor are a false alarm. He also says he got an equally strong confirmation from WhatsApp's Privacy Policy Manager Nate Cardozo, who Facebook hired last December from EFF. "He basically leveraged his historical reputation to assure me that WhatsApp, and Facebook in general, would never do something like this."