Nokia Admits Decrypting User Data Claiming It Isn't Looking

judgecorp writes "Nokia has admitted that it routinely decrypts user's HTTPS traffic, but says it is only doing it so it can compress it to improve speed. That doesn't convince security researcher Gaurang Pandya, who accuses the company of spying on customers." From the article, Nokia says: "'Importantly, the proxy servers do not store the content of web pages visited by our users or any information they enter into them. When temporary decryption of HTTPS connections is required on our proxy servers, to transform and deliver users' content, it is done in a secure manner. ... Nokia has implemented appropriate organisational and technical measures to prevent access to private information. Claims that we would access complete unencrypted information are inaccurate.'"

Comments

What?

[recoiledsnake]

security researcher Gaurang Pandya

What are this guy's credentials apart from being a guy with a blog?

Amazon Silk browser does the same, Opera mini does the same, what's with this jumping on the Nokia hate bandwagon? Perhaps they should stop proxying HTTPS traffic, but remember in third world countries data comes at a HUGE premium, so these services are a god send, especially with a lot of sites moving to HTTPS by default. I would hope that Opera/Amazon/Nokia are atleast as credible as your ISP though it's an additional point of failure.

Re:What?

[godrik]

Amazon Silk and Opera mini clearly states that every single connexion goes through them in clear. I do not think nokia does.

My ISP does not do that. When I negogiate an HTTPS session, my ISP does not intercept it and perform a MITM attack. apparently nokia does.

That's so much not ok.

Re:What?

[Rockoon]

I know this is slashdot and we do not read much what people so that we can rant and seem smart. But come on, it is written in TFS and TFT (the F-ing title). "Nokia admits decrypting user data."

..because they encrypt the users data on the device, and send it to their servers where it must be decrypted in order to know what it is and even where to send it.

Would you rather they didnt encrypt the data and sent it over the air like that instead?

You claim to know that this is slashdot, but dont seem to know to at least make an attempt to understand the technologies that you are talking about? Worthless blabber.

Hint: the phone is not the endpoint of the browsing session - the phone is a remote terminal for a server that is the endpoint of the browsing session

Fedware

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't access your personal information with our closed source NSA backdoors, we just plug this strange Narus device into our routers.

Re:How do they even do that?

[jeffmeden]

There must be serious flaws in HTTPS if they can decrypt the traffic for hosts that they don't control the certs for.

They control the browser. According to the article, the necessary certificate is installed on phones as Nokia ships them.

This is exactly what i was thinking/fearing. This is some scary shit, basically you ought to treat HTTPS on your Nokia device like HTTP, unless you really really trust that Nokia knows what they are doing and how to keep a secret. The striking thing is that users obviously have no idea they are handshaking with Nokia instead of their bank, doctor, etc. Are there at least alternate browsers available?

"In a secure fashion..."

[eth1]

...my ass

Right up until the government shows up and demands that they send all the traffic to them first, and forbids them from notifying their customers.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[0123456]

Yeah, because having the browser display the page locally is just exactly the same as having a remote server decrypt your connection as a man in the middle.

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing stops the browser from transmitting information to a third-party server.

=>

You have to trust that the browser publisher knows what it is doing and how to keep a secret.

Re:How do they even do that?

[erroneus]

Your trust is extended because of the expectations involved. The user/owner of the device is not informed that, unlike his PC or other smart phone devices, Nokia is handling encyption differently. As https is used primarily for the purpose of securing data traffic between the user and their banks or their other services which need security, the expectation has always been that it would not involve the maker of the device which is being used.

I "trust" my car maker to build a good car. I do not "trust" them not to install cameras in it without my knowledge and then tell me later "there are cameras, but we are not looking at the video feed."

It's a documented and advertised feature

[nedlohs]

If you don't trust Nokia to not snoop on your data then why are you carrying around a device made by Nokia that contains a camera and a microphone and a cellular connection to the internet (and probably a gps though I don't know the details of Nokia's phones)?

Re:Any browser publisher is the same way

[gl4ss]

From what I understand, the browser is not doing HTTPS at all to the bank/docter etc, its doing HTTP or HTTPS to the nokia proxy and proxy is doing the HTTPS to bank/doctor. In this scenario HTTPS is not broken, the phone is. Total fail Nokia

it's doing a special protocol to nokias servers(encrypted).
just like opera mini has been doing for years.

they did this as a feature catchup. also it enables them to actually RENDER THE FUCKING PAGES THE PHONE WOULDN'T OTHERWISE BE ABLE TO. that's how these light browsers manage to do their magic on really shitty hw.

sometimes slashdot feels like full of fucking idiots who have been living under 324 feet of rock without internet.

if you don't like it, buy a phone that costs more than ninety bucks(no subs).

here's a shocking reveal of opera mini passing all data through their servers on slashdot from 2006 http://tech.slashdot.org/story/06/01/24/227227/opera-mini-mobile-browser-officially-released