Comment on Lawsuit Alleges That WhatsApp Has No End-to-End Encryption
RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 9 hours agocreating a backdoor to access plaintext messages is still very difficult if the app is well audited
Well audited is key, this attack likely works by doing something like adding Meta to the list of trusted devices, then hiding itself from the list (either because of code in the client or because it the meta device is only added for a moment), so the backdoor wouldn’t be send_all_messages_to_hq(), it would be in the code to list trusted devices, either explicitly hiding some devices or some sort of refresh timer that’s known so you can avoid being there when the UI is updated).
Or it works through the some other mechanism that still preserves E2E encryption.
clean_anion@programming.dev 9 hours ago
I assumed that not only the entire app but also the entire client device had been audited. This was a client-side attack, not Meta momentarily adding itself to the trusted-device list. I’m confident it was a client-side attack because it would be impossible to hide even a momentary change in keys from the client without modifying the client app to conceal such a change.
RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Does Meta make it visible when you add a new trusted device? Does Signal?
But yeah Meta have full control of the client and it isn’t audited so they could do it a lot of ways.
clean_anion@programming.dev 8 hours ago
Yes, it is visible when a new trusted device is added. The QR code you scan to link a device contains a one-time public key for that device (ECC is used partly to fit the public key more easily into a QR code). Signal on the phone then sends a lot of information, including the identity keys, to the new device. The new device uses these identity keys to communicate. Note that the transfer of identity keys is fully encrypted, with encryption and decryption taking place on the clients. This can, of course, be bypassed if someone you’re talking to has their security key compromised, but the same risk exists if the recipient takes a screenshot or photographs their device’s screen.