Top Security Researchers Ask The Guardian To Retract Its WhatsApp Backdoor Report (technosociology.org) 70
Earlier this month The Guardian reported what it called a "backdoor" in WhatsApp, a Facebook-owned instant messaging app. Some security researchers were quick to call out The Guardian for what they concluded was irresponsible journalism and misleading story. Now, a group of over three dozen security researchers including Matthew Green and Bruce Schneier (as well as some from companies such as Google, Mozilla, Cloudflare, and EFF) have signed a long editorial post, pointing out where The Guardian's report fell short, and also asking the publication to retract the story. From the story: The WhatsApp behavior described is not a backdoor, but a defensible user-interface trade-off. A debate on this trade-off is fine, but calling this a "loophole" or a "backdoor" is not productive or accurate. The threat is remote, quite limited in scope, applicability (requiring a server or phone number compromise) and stealthiness (users who have the setting enabled still see a warning; "even if after the fact). The fact that warnings exist means that such attacks would almost certainly be quickly detected by security-aware users. This limits this method. Telling people to switch away from WhatsApp is very concretely endangering people. Signal is not an option for many people. These concerns are concrete, and my alarm is from observing what's actually been happening since the publication of this story and years of experience in these areas. You never should have reported on such a crucial issue without interviewing a wide range of experts. The vaccine metaphor is apt: you effectively ran a "vaccines can kill you" story without interviewing doctors, and your defense seems to be, "but vaccines do kill people [through extremely rare side effects]."
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That's the problem with humanity vs security in a nutshell: We're hardwired to put our trust in people, instead of facts.
In sciences, who says something is not important, what is being said is.
Any scientist or security expert worth his salt should be the first to admit that they often make mistakes, and that nothing should be taken as gospel, but be verified.
Re:Take a note of who is doing the requesting (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but even in the area of science you'll notice that who says something still has some meaning.
If I say that at the center of every black hole there is a little pink teapot, you'll call me a crackpot and be done with it.
If Stephen Hawking made this claim, I bet you would want to know his reasoning.
At the very least this meant for me that I would want to see why Bruce considers it a non-issue.
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The list is a whos-who of the most reliable sources of information on security.
That's part of the problem. Real security people don't expose themselves to the public, much less talk to the press.
These people here just serve big business and have every reason to whitewash the report.
Nice bit of propaganda there:
*a defensible user-interface trade-off* The threat is remote, quite limited in scope, applicability (requiring a server or phone number compromise) and stealthiness (users who have the setting enabled
Re:Take a note of who is doing the requesting (Score:4, Insightful)
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The fact that warnings exist means that such attacks would almost certainly be quickly detected by security-aware users. This limits this method
... shows that there's either more a play here, or they are f*cking retards. And yes, both Mozilla and EFF belong on the list of assholes if they agree with this statement.
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What are you even talking about. A bunch of people that signed the editorial are academic cryptographers who work for universities. What big business are you talking about now?
Universities, in general, do not fund themselves. I'm sure that "big business" has some influence on where research funds are allocated.
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Duly noted. But do you believe that big business has nothing to do with those organizations? No influence on those organizations?
I'm not trying to flame or start a big argument, but I'm just curious.
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Real security people don't expose themselves to the public, much less talk to the press.
Are you kidding? Nobody listens to you if your name doesn't ring bells. Publish or perish IS pretty much what makes or breaks your career as a security expert these days. You think any of them have a problem getting a speaker slot at any security conference if they so please? Or get any contract they'd want?
It's sad, but yes, security has become a spectacle. Welcome to the show, watch our CSI-esque presentation of how we penetrate your defenses with style...
Exactamundo... (Score:1)
I wonder how much WhatsApp paid for their fealty?
Re:Take a note of who is doing the requesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Dude, take a look at what's happening here.
The "security hole" in question here is basically the same deal as you have with every other service where you can transfer your service to a new device. You know, you buy a new phone, then want to continue using your IM or whatever on the new phone... but with the new phone you'd also get to negotiate new encryption keys. And that means that all messages still in the queue would be lost, because they have been encrypted with your old key.
That's the whole "exploit" here.
There's plenty of reasons to distrust WhatsApp and even more reasons to avoid it like the plague, not the least of which being that it hands all data over to FB [gizmodo.com] despite first claiming and vowing that it would never do that.
If THIS is your reason to distrust WhatsApp, you have bigger problems.
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There's plenty of reasons to distrust WhatsApp and even more reasons to avoid it like the plague, not the least of which being that it hands all data over to FB [gizmodo.com] despite first claiming and vowing that it would never do that.
They might do that eventually, but they currently don't and never have, FYI. The plans were scrapped after some legal conflict in the UK.
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Find a way to convince me to actually believe that they complied.
Why would FB acquire WA? Because they really loved to have a messenger service in the portfolio but without any interest in leeching the data? C'mon.
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Link to actual letter (Score:5, Insightful)
http://technosociology.org/?page_id=1687
Rather than recursive links to other slashdot articles on the subject
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Looks like the link to the original report (not in the Guardian article, but posted a couple times in the comments) might be Slashdotted. I found an archived copy [archive.org] at Internet Archive. It was posted last April and updated last May.
Retracting the Truth (Score:3, Insightful)
Why the heck would they retract the truth?
If your threat model includes government spying, WhatsApp is not secure since the government can force WhatsApp to reissue your key and then scoop us the resulting messages.
The editorial spin on this story from slashdot is very disappointing.
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If WhatsApp want to sniff your messages, they can. They update the app to just not encrypt.
If government forces them to do that, they can.
In and of itself, that's an entirely different threat model.
What this says is not "WhatsApp is 100% secure to use" (because security experts are not stupid enough to ever say that).
They are saying "This compromise that you claim lets anyone open your encrypted messages? Yeah, it's rubbish unless you literally take over WhatsApp servers."
There is no service in the world
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The point of the "compromise" is not to let "anyone" open your encrypted messages, it is exactly for letting WhatsApp (the people that already control their servers) open your encrypted messages.
And while this design flaw is being touted as a convenience feature, there's no telling what other flaws can be used along with this one for additional exploitation.
And warning the user of a possible compromise AFTER the message has been sent? Yea that's real good security right there.
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Why the heck would they retract the truth? If your threat model includes government spying, WhatsApp is not secure since the government can force WhatsApp to reissue your key and then scoop us the resulting messages. The editorial spin on this story from slashdot is very disappointing.
There is no back door. The security issue that stemmed all of this is that whatsapp will deliver messages that were sent while a user moves from one device to another. So, if I send it to you while your phone is busted and you reinstall on a new phone, you get the messages. The recepient key changes, and the sender is notified of this.
The security angle is that with SMS verification you could intentionally intercept someone else's messages. Well, message (singular) because as stated, it notifies the sende
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There is no back door. The security issue that stemmed all of this is that whatsapp will deliver messages that were sent while a user moves from one device to another. So, if I send it to you while your phone is busted and you reinstall on a new phone, you get the messages. The recepient key changes, and the sender is notified of this.
The problem, if I understand this correctly, is that the sender is notified after the message has been recrypted and sent to the recipient.
If it alerted and required an accept before the message was sent to the new key, I don't think anyone would have a problem with it.
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The problem, if I understand this correctly, is that the sender is notified after the message has been recrypted and sent to the recipient. If it alerted and required an accept before the message was sent to the new key, I don't think anyone would have a problem with it.
But it is not a back door. It's a very limited channel to obtaining a few messages that requires you to have some way of verifying the account (SMS interception). If you are going to build a back door to something, this is about the worst way possible.
Re:Retracting the Truth (Score:4, Informative)
I think back door is a completely wrong description, but I still think it is a security concern.
If a notification that the recipient key has changed only occurs after delivering the message anyhow, it kind of defeats having key verification in the first place.
It's like if your bank re-routes your money transfer to a different recipient account than what you initially specified, and notifies you after the fact, instead of asking you if it's okay before doing so.
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Re: Retracting the Truth (Score:2)
No
1. if you did 4, you dont need to do 1 at all
2. if you did 4, you dont need to do 1 at all
3. if you did 4, you dont need to do 1 at all
4. if you did 4, you dont need to do 1,2,3
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Remember (Score:5, Insightful)
WhatsApp is big money...and combined with the fact it's hard to prove that a vulnerability was intentional and thus a "back door" it's hard for Joe Average to tell who's right.
Don't worry about this stuff. Just keep using WhatsApp. It's just as secure as everything else, honest.
Telling people not to use WhatsApp is apparently "endangering people"...as it is a "crucial issue".
Summary; do not use Signal, ChatSecure, OTR or Telegram. Use WhatsApp, it's clearly safer #because_danger (??).
Personally I never thought WhatsApp was secure even after this (maybe backdoor-ed) end to end encryption - Consider many people use WhatsApp? it's the number one target IM. If it ever was secure it won't be so tomorrow.
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Why would I use Telegram if I were concerned about security? It has a closed-source, roll your own crypto system. WhatsApp and Signal use OpenWhisper.
Anyway, WhatsApp might have security vulnerabilities or backdoors but the reported "backdoor" isn't a backdoor. It's a design choice, and there is an option for security-conscious people to see when a new crypto key is generated.
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Telling people not to use WhatsApp is apparently "endangering people"...as it is a "crucial issue".
I do not know if it is happening here but there is actually precedent for security agencies doing this. The next best thing to compromising a secure system is to make the users believe that you have so they change to something less secure.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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I guess because it is .001% harder to use...
I was going to say "because it isn't integrated into your FB contacts" but that might not be true... depending on how you sync your contacts.
Re:Why? "Signal not an option for many people"... (Score:4, Insightful)
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The story may be different if Signal was a federated protocol with entirely decentralized servers (like email).
However, it's not, and there's a single point of failure that can be blocked.
WhatsApp became popular and widespread before many repressive governments realized what it could do, so they can't block it without widespread outcry.
Not so with Signal, which is blocked, and therefore not an option.
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Re: Why? "Signal not an option for many people"... (Score:2)
No time (Score:3)
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I agree with your assessment but would suggest you remove the words, "journalists."
There aren't any.
That shit died when advertisers, CEOs and shareholders grabbed "news" by the fucking balls.
hyperbole much? (Score:2)
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This whole goddam article ... (Score:2)
... including the comment section, is like using a fucking elephant gun to kill a piss ant.
Did Schneier really put his name to this? (Score:2)
How serious this is depends on your threat model. If you are worried about the US government -- or any other government that can pressure Facebook -- snooping on your messages, then this is a small vulnerability. If not, then it's nothing to worry about.
Maybe the guardian article was alarmist but... (Score:2)
Educating the public to privacy and security issues is a worthwhile exercise. Maybe it isn't a backdoor but people seem to be increasingly concerned when it is suggested that their messages can be intercepted and read by third parties. This can only be a good thing. Our privacy has been eroded by several large corporations and a weird fascination with social media. Several companies want access to all of our data but the number of high profile breaches illustrate a significant risk in trusting others wi
Whatsapp vs. Signal (Score:2)
Which is why... (Score:2)
The report is bullshit (Score:2)
What WhatsApp does is reducing their E2E security to the security level of TLS. This means nobody can read the content except the server. With TLS, because its plaintext there, with WhatsApp because they can change the crypto keys and nobody cares (and most people do not even the the message).
When you accept, that it's only transport security but not end-to-end anymore, you can use a lot more messengers, as most use TLS (i.e. because apple forces them to do).
The Schneier group in a nutshell: (Score:2)
Dear Security Researchers. (Score:2)
Yeah, sure. I can’t for the life of me understand who could get worried about this.