Over one billion people use #Facebook Messenger every month. A rollout of end-to-end encryption on the messaging platform is a huge win for user privacy across the world. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/meta-announces-end-end-encryption-default-messenger
@eff yes, except for the fact that, as with WhatsApp, Facebook/Meta control the client apps at both ends of the E2EE link... so that means they can truthfully say that the communication is E2EE, while still harvesting the message content (via a separate link between the clients that ends at FB) for advertising purposes.
Praising FB/Meta in any way is incompatible with increasing Digital Freedom. The only thing that'll do that is to shun BigTech altogether.
@lightweight @eff Yes. It's hard to claim a victory for freedom when your just exchanging forms of captivity.
@eff unencrypted metadata. Also, it's still Meta. Best to stay away from them entirely.
@eff The Venn diagram of Facebook and privacy are two separate circles that do not overlap.
@eff the phrase "a huge win" used to describe things that happen to people still using facebook seems odd. Have you looked at that network recently? It is irresponsible to promote it, in any case.
@eff
There’s a delicious smörgåsbord of wrong takes in the replies here.
No one on this planet hates Facebook more than me. None of you. But I can admit that it’s good that this happened. End of story. Just good.
No, Facebook does not still have the content of messages, that’s what end-to-end encryption means. The sender: yes. The recipient: yes. The servers in between: no. Facebook is using the Signal protocol, and that’s the gold standard.
Facebook will have whatever metadata that the protocol generates. All protocols generate some, otherwise the message can’t be delivered. I have questions about whether Facebook fully minimized the metadata, but not the content.
But you blowhards’ just keep telling the EFF (FFS!) how this is actually bad. I’m sure you’re more informed on this than they are.
@Voline @eff @lightweight @Milkman76 E2EE between two people does not mean that there are not extra ghost keys in the mix hidden from the two parties. An example: https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/doc/2020/fact-sheet-ghost-proposals/
@thomzane
Then it’s not end-to-end encrypted, is it Thom? How about this, you read a couple articles about this and *then* comment.
@Voline You've done it! You have convinced me that Meta has turned over a new leaf. Facebook Messenger, the app that requires every permission possible to snoop on users as much as they possibly can, is finally private. /s
@Voline @eff @lightweight @thomzane this is interesting PR, yes. You, just like me, HATE facebook but want those grinches in the comments to just lay off the condemnation of something totes objectively good!! Am I right?
Nevermind that the payload of the application itself is one of the most manipulative, toxic, soul-sucking spaces human beings have ever created, and the myriad of surveillance and random experiments done with data sucked from it, no.
Lets be reasonable.
@Milkman76
They payload of an E2E encrypted message between two people could be anything. You have no idea. The Facebook message board is a soup of misinformation that has hosted promotion of actual genocides.
But, if people have a confidential way to communicate where they didn't before, saying that is good is not promoting the platform. It's terrible, no one should use it. But not everyone listens to me. They should, but they don’t.
Some of those people may be mothers and daughters who are discussing an unwanted teen pregnancy in Oklahoma. It is an objectively good thing if this conversation is end to end encrypted, so that the platform cannot possibly turn the contents of that conversation over to the Okie cops. If that’s not pure enough of a win for you, oh well. You're still the reasonable one.
@Voline the entire apparatus, for well over a decade now, is WIDELY understood to be a trap for regular people on many levels. On top of that, it isnt NECESSARY and there are plenty of other technologies available to handle secure messaging outside **Facebook**. The entire subject, from its inception, its wrongheaded.
E2E encryption has nothing to do with "lawful" intercept.
Of course you come from kolektiva - the anarchist instance lmao. This is a very regular anarchist position, yes.
@Milkman76
Word salad.
@Voline word salad. Yes.
And you are dishonest, on top of everything else. Got it, yeah. Nice escape valve you built there, fellow anarchist.
@Milkman76
Leninism is a policeman's ideology.
@Voline yes and karl marx supported genocide, hitler fought defensively, and the earth is the center of the universe, etc etc. Or, pick your flavor of fun propaganda. Ive heard ALL of it, to date.
Hint: Im close to age 50, and Ive been focused on history, politics, philosophy, science for 30+ years.
Go.
@Voline I note: you've moved us away from talking critically about the brand you are defending: facebook.
Now your turn.
@Milkman76
Nope. You don't need me. You can just go on arguing with the straw man you've constructed.
@Voline your faith in the integrity of #BigTech is amusing. @eff @thomzane @Milkman76
@lightweight
Oh, you are so sophisticated and savvy. How can my mere information possibly compare to your attitude.
@eff Something I don't understand: a 6-digits PIN is only 999 999 different PINs. Isn't that trivial to bruteforce for law enforcement or hackers having access to facebook servers?
@eff
Trusting Meta to encrypt my communications seems a little too much like trusting the burglar who just robbed me to secure my house. Sure, he might be able to do it...just not sure I trust him.
@eff, don't be naive. Meta offering Facebook users true privacy would conflict with Meta's business model.