Re:WhatsApp end-to-end encrypted backups security assessment
by rocqua on Thursday November 11, 2021 @08:42AM
(#29187712)
e2e encryption means the party in the middle does not have the key to the data. It is somewhat of a misnomer since it is a feature of key-agreement more than a feature of encryption.
Any other features are dependent on the protocol that uses the secret key. You will generally see an encryption method that is protected against cipher-text manipulation, but e2e does not guarantee that. Similarly, a protocol that uses e2e encryption can add replay protections, but it is not at all a feature inherent in e2e.
I could well imagine that whatsapp has some replay protection build in. I could similarly imagine they have a way to override that in case they need to. Heck, perhaps the replay protection is implemented with WhatsApp as the ultimate arbiter of what counts as a replay. As long as WhatsApp does not know the key used to encrypt my messages, the encryption is e2e in my book.
Any other features are dependent on the protocol that uses the secret key. You will generally see an encryption method that is protected against cipher-text manipulation, but e2e does not guarantee that. Similarly, a protocol that uses e2e encryption can add replay protections, but it is not at all a feature inherent in e2e.
I could well imagine that whatsapp has some replay protection build in. I could similarly imagine they have a way to override that in case they need to. Heck, perhaps the replay protection is implemented with WhatsApp as the ultimate arbiter of what counts as a replay. As long as WhatsApp does not know the key used to encrypt my messages, the encryption is e2e in my book.