Maybe you missed this — when end-to-end encryption was launched, they mentioned that they did not yet encrypt iOS, nor group chat.<p><a href="https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp/" rel="nofollow">https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp/</a><p>Did they make a subsequent announcement that they were encrypting those?
AFAIK end-to-end encryption can only be used with Android clients.<p><a href="http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Keeping-Tabs-on-WhatsApp-s-Encryption-2630361.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Keeping-Tabs-on-WhatsApp-s-En...</a><p>tl;dr end-to-end encryption in WhatsApp is not really useful (yet)
As much as I like and respect Moxie, I think it's a huge personal risk for him to associate himself with Facebook (WhatsApp)[0].<p>That said, come on... there's no user exposed key management in Whatsapp, or secure means to perform a handshake with your contacts. Even if they've really rolled out Moxies crypto protocol on Android, like they claim (go look at the source and verify... oh, wait), on <i>features alone</i> you can't trust it... you just can't create a secure channel unless you're in control of the keys.<p>And on terrorists using Whatsapp... well, Whatsapp accounts are tied to your cell phone #. The authorities can work with WhatsApp to piece together who messaged who, and when, and where you both physically were at the time. This is enough to bust terrorists. Deploying E-to-E crypto was never about <i>anonymity</i>.<p>[0] <a href="https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp/" rel="nofollow">https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp/</a>
As many have pointed out Whats App's E2EE isn't deployed on all platforms and messaging services.<p>Furthermore they've only rolled it out about 6 months ago, there's a good chance that the information which lead to this case was collected before the E2E encryption was rolled out.
Even if you do you use an app that always uses crypto end to end (e.g. signal/textsecure)<p><a href="https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal/" rel="nofollow">https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal/</a><p>There's no guarantee that apple/google/microsoft haven't been ordered to install a backdoored version.<p>tl;dr RMS was right
Seems very unwise of them to disclose this capability, if it exists. Might be a red herring? Or maybe an accidental disclosure through due to belgian/US miscommunication.
<a href="https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/06/us_identifies_a.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/06/us_identifies...</a><p>In the comments on this unrelated story of identifying a terrorist people argued that it's possible the story is deliberate misinformation, it could also be the case here.
"In its initial phase, though, Whatsapp’s messaging encryption is limited to Android, and doesn’t yet apply to group messages, photos or video messages. " <a href="http://www.wired.com/2014/11/whatsapp-encrypted-messaging/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/2014/11/whatsapp-encrypted-messaging/</a>
It's called "Consumer Marketing of Encryption."<p>Almost certainly Whatsapp is doing consumer to server encryption, but not end to end. If this is true, then Whatsapp holds or can decrypt the internal storage or transfer of messages.<p>Alternatively, there is a likelihood that the encryption keys are escrowed or trivially encrypted.<p>This is what we're seeing in the consolidating web giant world. Words don't match technical expectations, but they meet the letter of the law. We see/saw the same thing with privacy.
FWIW this is an article with a headline closer to the original, though with no additional information:<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/whatsapp-may-have-gotten-16-alleged-terrorists-busted-2015-6" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessinsider.com/whatsapp-may-have-gotten-16-a...</a>
I find it funny that somebody could be really so naive to expect privacy from WhatsApp after it got acquired by Facebook. Especially after we've had similar lessons with Skype + Microsoft.
You're not supposed to do this with story titles.<p>The correct title for this story would be "Belgium Arrests Two in Probe Over Returning Syria Fighter".