Encrypted WhatsApp messages frustrate new court-ordered wiretap

[Reefa]

The US Department of Justice has opened another legal front in the ongoing war over easy-to-use strong encryption.

 

According to a Saturday report in The New York Times, prosecutors have gone head-to-head with WhatsApp, the messaging app owned by Facebook. Citing anonymous sources, the Times reported that "as recently as this past week," federal officials have been "discussing how to proceed in a continuing criminal investigation in which a federal judge had approved a wiretap, but investigators were stymied by WhatsApp’s encryption."

 

The case, which apparently does not involve terrorism, remains under seal.

 

The government could pursue a strategy similar to the one it has employed in the ongoing terrorism investigation in San Bernardino, in which it was granted a court order that would compel Apple to create new software to defeat the encryption on a seized iPhone. Apple has vowed both publicly and in court papers to fight that order as intensely as possible, citing security concerns.

 

The Times noted that over the last year, WhatsApp has been upgrading encryption for messaging and voice calls.

 

As Ars reported earlier this month, since late 2014, all WhatsApp messages sent between Android devices are end-to-end encrypted, which means that not even parent company Facebook can access their plaintext contents. (WhatsApp messages that involve an iOS device began using encryption as of August 2015.)

 

Two years ago, WhatsApp upgraded its security after partnering with Open Whisper Systems, a company founded by well-known security researcher Moxie Marlinspike, the creator of Signal. During fiscal year 2014, Open Whisper Systems received $900,000 from the Open Technology Fund, an umbrella group whose primary funder is the United States government. That funding came primarily through the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the Department of State.

 

Matt Steinfeld, a Facebook spokesman, e-mailed Ars on Saturday: "Sorry, we’re declining comment on this."

 

Similarly, Emily Pierce, a Department of Justice spokeswoman, echoed this line: "We are not commenting."

 

Among other questions, Ars specifically asked Facebook and the DOJ if the Times' reporting was accurate.

 

SourcE

[straycat19]

With all the information being released on the 'frustration' level of decrypting communications it doesn't seem like anyone is aware of the massive disinformation programs that have been run by government agencies in the past in order to hide their true capabilities and give people a false sense of security.  If you don't want your communications heard by government agencies then the only secure means is face to face whispering in each others ear, and even then you better hope the other person isn't wearing a wire.  (Just for general information, government entities (agencies and military) change their encryption keys every 24 hours because it has been known since the 1930s that if the same encryption key is used consistently then the encryption can be broken.)

[steven36]

2 hours ago, straycat19 said:

With all the information being released on the 'frustration' level of decrypting communications it doesn't seem like anyone is aware of the massive disinformation programs that have been run by government agencies in the past in order to hide their true capabilities and give people a false sense of security.  If you don't want your communications heard by government agencies then the only secure means is face to face whispering in each others ear, and even then you better hope the other person isn't wearing a wire.  (Just for general information, government entities (agencies and military) change their encryption keys every 24 hours because it has been known since the 1930s that if the same encryption key is used consistently then the encryption can be broken.)

You seem to forget the USA is not the only place in the world in most of you're post . what does this have to do with this post ? all this post is telling me that programs made by developers that's made by USA companies that have any forum of encryption is going be under fire by the FBI .

 

Most all these products in the News were bought out by  companies that's known to work with law enforcement in the USA before . They been helping them all along . Every single one of these companies Snowden  brought to light as helping the  NSA out in  prism and the FBI  has access to that database . Now for marketing reasons all these companies no longer want to work  with the Law because Snowden leaked to fact they been doing it all along and now the FBI is after them all.because there not helping them anymore. But companies outside the USA that dont have such laws can tell them to go take  a hike. This tells me you cant really trust encryption made in the USA anymore.

 

The Head of the FBI said himself that it will be very hard for them to ever control open source encryption  . The reason being even if they back doored it someone from outside USA can fork it and remove there backdoors. Put you're trust in the Rich you will get screwed every time.  Known fact. 

 

People get killed ,abused , die from drugs and other multiple crimes are committed  every day its been going on since the USA existed it was founded  on violence  and bloodshed . Our founding fore fathers were what would be called terrorists  today . The USA is full of its own Radical Groups  that's been around for 100s of years. Crime was around before the internet existed every since the world existed and the FBI every since it existed has been able to do little about it , back in the 50s -80s the Government used communist as a excuse to take away our constitutional rights and now they use terrorism  as a excuse  to do the same thing. But crime is worse than it ever was in the Good Old  USA. The FBI never been able to put a dent in it. Hackers even breached there info . Great Job they do lol.

 

Were I'm from rats , snitches, people who take up for the Law and stuff is not cool its good way to end up getting hurt . So you dont impress me much cheerleading  for the  FBI who never done a great job no ways.

 

 

 

 

[CODYQX4]

5 hours ago, straycat19 said:

With all the information being released on the 'frustration' level of decrypting communications it doesn't seem like anyone is aware of the massive disinformation programs that have been run by government agencies in the past in order to hide their true capabilities and give people a false sense of security.  If you don't want your communications heard by government agencies then the only secure means is face to face whispering in each others ear, and even then you better hope the other person isn't wearing a wire.  (Just for general information, government entities (agencies and military) change their encryption keys every 24 hours because it has been known since the 1930s that if the same encryption key is used consistently then the encryption can be broken.)

Perfect Forward Secrecy is supposed to effectively be a key change as you describe, assuming your app of choice is implementing it correctly.