Re:WhatsApp backdoor allows snooping on encrypted messages
by xorcist on Friday January 13, 2017 @04:28PM
(#13394840)
The mobile space is tricky. A source code dump doesn't really do much beyond "trust us, this is what you get from App Store too". You also need the possibility to build the software yourself, which include things like API keys, before we're close to what assurances open source software used to give us.
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Re:WhatsApp backdoor allows snooping on encrypted messages
by derefr on Friday January 13, 2017 @04:38PM
(#13394931)
The nice thing about a FOSS mobile app is that you can (in theory, at least) sideload it. A covert operation could just gather up everyone's devices, build a fresh copy of the app, and then sideload that copy for everybody.
Of course, for that to be feasible, the network architecture of the app must not require API keys—and so must either be purely peer-to-peer, or involve a FOSS server component that the developer can run an instance of themselves (as in the Matrix protocol.)