WhatsApp backdoor allows snooping on encrypted messages

Re:WhatsApp backdoor allows snooping on encrypted messages by Jarwain on Friday January 13, 2017 @02:22PM (#13393845)

So they can recover the messages, right? However, wouldn't these messages still be encrypted? Sure, they force a key change, and the messages are encrypted using the new key and sent. Theoretically, an attacker could have multiple copies of the same message, but these messages would still be encrypted under a variety of different keys right? Wouldn't the content of the messages still be secure?

Unless the key-change forces the user to be using an insecure key-pair, but is that actually happening?

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Re:WhatsApp backdoor allows snooping on encrypted messages by ycmbntrthrwaway on Friday January 13, 2017 @04:38PM (#13394927)

New encryption (public) key is selected by the attacker, so he knows the decryption (private) key. Basically attacker just puts real device offline and registers his own device.

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Re:WhatsApp backdoor allows snooping on encrypted messages by Jarwain on Tuesday January 24, 2017 @04:38AM (#13469968)

Wouldn't the attacker need to be authenticated as the user of the real device for this to work?

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