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Snapchat, Skype Put Users' 'Human Rights at Risk', Amnesty Int'l Reports (cbsnews.com)
Shanika Gunaratna, writing for CBS News: Snapchat and Skype are falling short in protecting users' privacy -- a failure that puts users' "human rights at risk," according to a report by the organization Amnesty International. Snapchat and Skype received dismal grades in a new set of rankings released by Amnesty that specifically evaluate how popular messaging apps use encryption to protect users' private communications. In the report, Amnesty is trying to elevate encryption as a human rights necessity, due to concerns that activists, opposition politicians and journalists in some countries could be put in grave danger if their communications on popular messaging apps were compromised. "Activists around the world rely on encryption to protect themselves from spying by authorities, and it is unacceptable for technology companies to expose them to danger by failing to adequately respond to the human rights risks," Sherif Elsayed-Ali, head of Amnesty's technology and human rights team, said in a statement. "The future of privacy and free speech online depends to a very large extent on whether tech companies provide services that protect our communications, or serve them up on a plate for prying eyes."Microsoft's Skype received 40 out of 100. WhatsApp fared at 73, and Apple scored 67 out of 100 for its iMessage and FaceTime apps. BlackBerry, Snapchat, and China's Tencent did 30 out of 100.
You don't have any rights if you use a closed, proprietary communication system that reports directly to the US government.
Why didn't they compare the commercial offerings with Signal?
It's GPLv3, offers encrypted messaging and voice calls, and when served with a subpoena, Open Whisper Systems was only able to provide a confirmation of a user's account, and the last time they had logged in.
...aren't Snapchat and Skype free?
Access to encryption is a right, but good software costs money, and is not a "right".
I feel like Amnesty International has failed to put these various services in context.
Skype makes no claims that it is an anti-government service. It is subject to and complies with Lawful Intercept in the US and other countries. You should not treat it any differently than the local telco, because that's all Skype is trying to be.
only 10% of Tor users are journalists, human rights activists, etc. A bit more than half use it to hide illegal activities.
(Yes, TFA is about messaging, but the whole "we must save encryption to protect the downtrodden" meme is just bogus.)
You got it backwards. To make your point about bogus, you should look at the percentage of journalists, human rights activists, etc. being Tor users, not the other way round.
"activists, opposition politicians and journalists in some countries could be put in grave danger if their communications on popular messaging apps were compromised."
It would help if the communications were not funnelled through Skype headquarters in north America and the encryption keys only resided on the client devices.
So use that fact if your in the press. Plant lots of fiction based on your past reporting to bait or misdirect the nations tasked with illegal domestic collect it all.
If the brand was part of PRISM and was happy to decrypt for the US gov over the years keep mentioning that for free.
PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If you write on political issues, fill your messages with stories about contacts, news from new whistleblowers, about new emerging and past political intrigues.
Part of the tech media? A new free crypto that actually works as designed without a US trapdoor or backdoor designed in. That a select few in the press have been allowed to see but not mention yet is great bait.
Free OS security apps that can find zero day gov malware and track back its origins. Be super creative and push the limits of tech fiction.
Walk around areas of a city where it would be expected to meet with a mil/gov worker and keep the phone like device powered on.
Fake notes in a cafe and send then back "encrypted" details your office and residence in real time. Be very creative.
Make the brands popular messaging app collection irrelevant for both tracking and content. Give the tracking hardware and software to friends for a different walk or drive around.
You still have freedom of expression, freedom of the press and the freedom after speech. So be creative and help fill the tasking systems.
Be seen near any local protests, walk, carry a big old dslr, park locally to get your license plate near any event. If a chat down is induced by walking around in public, record it and put it on youtube with a lot of other first amendment audit videos.
The method in all this is to go from interesting member of the press or an interesting person to the security services to been very, very boring.
Got off their "Interesting People” list by using US device and software with junk encryption to flood illegal domestic collection with plain text fictional junk.
Illegal domestic collection only works if the product is good, the people been tasked are very real and can be sorted and tracked.
Go from a security risk to a risk to keep in any database due to all the fiction that clogs up domestic tasking.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
politicians and journalists in some countries could be put in grave danger if their communications on popular messaging apps were compromised.
Skype was good enough for the CIA to be discussing top-secret operations in real time when they were filming Homeland, so it ought to be secure enough for anybody.
I knew I needed to stop reading Slashdot and finish my PhD when I started to miss articles by Bennett Haselton.