News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rathe... by frankfrank13 on Thursday July 20, 2023 @10:11AM (#36800707)
I think Meta _needs_ WhatsApp to be their loss-leader (not really, but you know) when it comes to security. They always get to say "oh but WhatsApp is E2E!! We do care about security!"
Re:Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rathe... by fennecfoxy on Thursday July 20, 2023 @10:42AM (#36801209)
I mean Apple didn't give two stones about security until it became a marketing/selling point as a counterpoint to the big G.
Re:Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rathe... by codetrotter on Thursday July 20, 2023 @10:48AM (#36801291)
> Apple didn't give two stones about security until it became a marketing/selling point as a counterpoint to the big G

That’s not true. Apple was position itself as being better at security than Microsoft long before Google was selling devices to people.

For example:

https://youtu.be/VuqZ8AqmLPY

Re:Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rathe... by elishah on Thursday July 20, 2023 @11:07AM (#36801604)
True, but security and privacy are different things. At most, one could say that security is necessary-but-not-sufficient for privacy.

Google is generally excellent at security, but that doesn't change the fact that they're a nightmare for privacy.

Re:Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rathe... by i_am_jl on Thursday July 20, 2023 @11:04AM (#36801561)
Apple sold itself as having better security.

It's debatable whether or not that was true, and even if you believed it it was up for another debate whether that security was by design or because Apple's vanishingly small share of the PC market made it uneconomical to write malware targeting OSX.

This isn't to say that Microsoft was doing security properly back then either, they weren't.

Re:Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rathe... by lwhi on Thursday July 20, 2023 @11:16AM (#36801750)
Hmm, might want to reconsider that [1]

[1]https://www.theregister.com/2017/11/28/root_access_bypass_ma....

Re:Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rathe... by asmor on Thursday July 20, 2023 @11:21AM (#36801838)
security isn't privacy, and technology isn't a public policy alignment
Re:Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rathe... by lwhi on Thursday July 20, 2023 @11:34AM (#36802043)
I was responding to a comment directly mentioning 'security'
Re:Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rathe... by zikduruqe on Thursday July 20, 2023 @10:47AM (#36801281)
It's called market shift.

Automative manufactures didn't give a rats ass about fuel economy until customers wanted it.

Re:Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rathe... by zirgs on Thursday July 20, 2023 @11:15AM (#36801736)
Also multiple celebrities had their nudes stolen from their iCloud.
Re:Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rathe... by idiotsecant on Thursday July 20, 2023 @11:53AM (#36802326)
>Apple didn't give two stones about security until it became a marketing/selling point

I don't much care. Companies don't have ethics, they have fiscal goals. If Apples fiscal goals happen to line up with my own goals, so much the better.

I would tend to trust a company who is doing something to selfishly support the bottom line way easier than I would trust a company who claims to be doing it for the common good of all humanity.

Google famously started off trying to not be evil and also be a profitable company simultaneously. It didn't work out great in that one of those goals became slightly more important than the other.

Re:Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rathe... by gruez on Thursday July 20, 2023 @10:32AM (#36801047)
Messenger also has e2e, but it's opt in.
Re:Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rathe... by the_duke on Thursday July 20, 2023 @10:49AM (#36801317)
The ironic thing is that WhatsApp very heavily pushes users into Google account backups, which are unencrypted, giving government agencies all the access they want.

I remember some talk about those getting encrypted, don't k ow if that has happened yet.

Re:Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rathe... by bjord on Thursday July 20, 2023 @10:52AM (#36801353)
it happened in 2021, and some form of encryption for whatsapp icloud backups has apparently been available since 2016

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/whatsapp-encrypted-backups

Re:Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rathe... by ancientworldnow on Thursday July 20, 2023 @10:55AM (#36801398)
You can encrypt the Google drive backup actually. It's just a toggle switch on the backup menu setting to enable it.
Re:Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rathe... by pmontra on Thursday July 20, 2023 @12:28PM (#36802918)
They seems to be end to end encrypted now. It asked me a password to encrypt the backup with. It's a recent feature and you must trust a closed source app. No idea of I can download the backup from Google drive with a web browser and decrypt it with some common decryption program.