https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/14/16143354/facebook-messeng...
This does not make messages inaccessible to Facebook, as they control both endpoints.
A good analogy: it's like writing a letter and asking the mailman to put it into an envelope, so she leaves the room and comes back with your sealed envelope.
The mailman then looks at you and says "I won't read it, I promise.", Wink wink.
That's end-to-end encryption for the commons.
Nah, nobody gives a damn about the source code, or reproducible builds to ensure the binary they're executing was compiled with that source.
The main gap in trust is that Facebook has a long history of lying and cheating to maximize for themselves so there's no basis to trust that their new moves are good for users.
But conspiracy theories about e2e being read by Facebook are probably bogus, and certainly a distraction.
Even though the source is closed, I'd bet they're doing a credible job of securing messages so that even Facebook can't read them.
That's not the issue, it's a distraction from what's really important.
What's really important is that Facebook has lost control of the monster it created. This is a way to let the monster loose and avoid accountability.
Their platform amplifies harmful content like incitement to violence, terrorist recruiting and coordination, and political propaganda.
By encrypting everything so even Facebook can't read it, Facebook escapes accountability for the harm their platform inflicts on people.
Very similar to a chemical company dumping toxic waste in public water, Facebook is dumping their pollution on the public by using strong encryption to make it physically impossible for Facebook to control the monster they created.
The keynote's online. (https://www.facebook.com/FacebookforDevelopers/videos/422572...) He mentions end-to-end encryption a variety of times, but one example is at about 15:23, where he states, and here I do quote, "without having to worry about hackers, governments, or even us being able to see what you're saying".
Now, skepticism about Zuckerberg and Facebook is warranted, but my recollection of the keynote is that statements like this didn't leave much wiggle room on this particular point. They were playing word games in other areas, like abusing the term "interoperability" to mean "between the different Facebook-owned apps", but I don't think they were here.
Maybe they'll start training a personalized ML model on client devices and maybe even send it back to the mothership for further exploitation.
Just because the protocol is well-formed doesn’t mean the totality of the implementation is trustworthy.
#ShowUsTheCode
It's better to have to trust somewhat verifiable promises about the Facebook app than to have to trust unverifiable promises about Facebook-the-entire-organization. That's the advantage that E2E provides.
https://www.archive.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p7...
They seem to be VR meeting spaces: https://blog.mozvr.com/introducing-hubs-a-new-way-to-get-tog...
The model you describe seems like a good one, similar to what most Linux distributions do. The distro maintainers are trusted and they compile packages and distribute the binaries, but people can run the package generation scripts themselves to get their own package straight from the source. Reproducible builds allow users to confirm that the maintainers aren't doing anything sketchy - that probably isn't a possibility here, but this model is still far better than what FB/WhatsApp and even Signal do.
Although when it comes to Facebook, we have to take them at their word that it's truly end-to-end.
It's time to bring the hammer down on advertisement and manipulation of people's behaviour. Imagine if the government would try to nudge people in the way these companies do, we'd never here the end of it and rightfully so.
Non health related example: https://datasmart.ash.harvard.edu/news/article/how-governmen...
Also any taxes on goods like cigarettes or fuel are nudges. Also zoning..
You've never seen a Got Milk ad, have you?
That's not the government - it is a private association of "... milk processors and dairy farms."[1]
(Not the OP) Personally, yes, it applies in full to all other companies. That said, marketing and advertising companies (which Facebook counts as) are the most egregious with this sort of thing.
Excellent description of personalized advertising.
This is fine in my book as long as they involve more sociologists/psychologists in the process, are transparent about unintended consequences and what behavior modification they are indulging in.
The thing that is becoming clearer and clearer from the data accumulating about people's behavior is left to themselves ALL people have low awareness of their own damaging behavior. Whether it's to themselves, their families or communities. Those that do have some awareness have little clue about how to climb out of holes. Spotting issues early, alerting/educating people about them and showing them what options they have to improve their own behavior is a huge opportunity to do good.
Even with your conditions, this would be the exact opposite of "fine" in my book. The involvement of sociologists/psychologists would make it even worse.
Or are you saying, as it sounds like here, that access to Facebook data is good for the fields of psychology and sociology?
In any case, the involvement of socio/psychologists in the process of user manipulation makes the situation worse precisely because it could very likely make that manipulation more effective.
Although it's not all that's desired, it's something. After all don't forget that entities much less legal than Facebook are after your data (like the NSA).
- Focusing on adding e2e encryption for messaging services serves as a nice deflector for FB's privacy issues. Their advertising systems aren't going to change in terms of efficacy and revenue potential if private messages between users are inaccessible to Facebook. I'd be surprised if they're using this data anyway, but it's Facebook, so who knows. In any case, expect the messaging to focus on increasing privacy through message and video encryption, which completely ignores the underlying issue of profile-building and behavior modification that Facebook's non-messaging platforms allow, and which I didn't seem to hear any plans around addressing.
- IMHO, pretty much all posturing around privacy by Facebook should not be taken seriously until they announce a change to their business model. Since they haven't, it doesn't take much effort to tease out the rest: their business model relies upon surveiling user behavior and selling behavior modification products, so you can expect no announcements around product changes that would undermine those efforts significantly in the name of privacy until their business model changes. Everything until then is just at best noise, at worst dishonest framing to take the heat off of them by those who are ignorant of the underlying dynamics, like regulators or the general public.