Slashdot Mirror
The Guardian Backtracks On WhatsApp 'Backdoor' Report (theguardian.com)
Five months after The Guardian published an investigative report, in which it found a "backdoor" in the Facebook-owned service, the publication is finally making amendments. The January report immediately stirred controversy among security experts, who began questioning The Guardian's piece. Weeks later, Zeynep Tufekci, a researcher and op-ed writer for the New York Times, published an open letter with over 70 major security researchers working at major universities and companies like Google condemning the story, and asking the publication to retract it.. Paul Chadwick, The Guardian's reader's editor, said "The Guardian was wrong to report last January that the popular messaging service WhatsApp had a security flaw so serious that it was a huge threat to freedom of speech." From his article: In a detailed review I found that misinterpretations, mistakes and misunderstandings happened at several stages of the reporting and editing process. Cumulatively they produced an article that overstated its case. The Guardian ought to have responded more effectively to the strong criticism the article generated from well-credentialled experts in the arcane field of developing and adapting end-to-end encryption for a large-scale messaging service. The original article -- now amended and associated with the conclusions of this review -- led to follow-up coverage, some of which sustained the wrong impression given at the outset. The most serious inaccuracy was a claim that WhatsApp had a "backdoor", an intentional, secret way for third parties to read supposedly private messages. This claim was withdrawn within eight hours of initial publication online, but withdrawn incompletely. The story retained material predicated on the existence of a backdoor, including strongly expressed concerns about threats to freedom, betrayal of trust and benefits for governments which surveil. In effect, having dialled back the cause for alarm, the Guardian failed to dial back expressions of alarm.
you would still be an idiot for using a facebook product.
I don't want to make this a right v left thing but I want to genuinely ask how we can trust the media. CNN and The NY Times have both had huge retractions recently and now this.
The real issue as I see it is that it's not a fog of war issue where mistakes happen, it's all driven by a business requirement for more viewers or visitors. Everyone wants a salatious headline to keep eyeballs. How do we get to a place where the media just presents the dry, boring and honest truth?
All these closed source messaging programs have backdoors (especially anything by facebook). That should be obvious by now. The guardian just received a nasty letter from the spies in the government to keep its mouth shut, an offer they can't refuse. The entire industry has a gun to its head and is being ordered to discredit the truth. The 'retraction' is a lie. The backdoors do exist.
the facebook administration that gives your data to their corporate overlords are the backdoor
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Freedom of speech is not at stake. Freedom after speech is what this impairs.
My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
Messages on WhatsApp are delayed when in China, but send immediately in Hong Kong. Happened around since WhatsApp became encrypted. Guess China really wants everyone to use Wechat to censorship lol. Stupid commies.
When WhatsApp or any other app is updated, and a seemingly small update needs several weeks to be processed by Apple or whoever, will you be downloading the app that was submitted, or one that has been modified? There's no way for you to know.
Consider those 4 weeks the time needed to modify the app before publishing it, to be able to listen in on certain targets, or why not everyone. It's not you who publish the app, you just make _an_app and submit the source code for it, and Apple, or really specifically targetted employees, then decide exactly what to publish, remember that.
As long as you haven't got control over your device, you have to consider it to be insecure, and you will _never_ have control over your iPhone or your Android phone.
This is why we should have a truth in news reporting act.
If you voluntary claim to be a new agency, then your writers and editors should be held liable and accountable to their mistakes. We should be able to trust in our news agencies to the extent that what is said, printed, or published should be admissible as testimony in court under penalty of perjury. News agencies will need to verify what they produce instead of just publishing the possible deception from one anonymous source.
The 7th page, one paragraph, print only redaction of a front page online headline from seven month ago doesn't cut it.
Th0r, the mighty thundergod, sayz: "hangout" and "line" are better.
I can probably tell if there is a backdoor for a very small value of backdoor within 60 to 80 hours. And I am no expert by any means.
Unless Facebook actually went so far as to release the source code to WhatsApp, we have NO IDEA what it contains. that's the whole point. The Guardian shouldn't have been making claims that they could not substantiate. But likewise, no one should be defending WhatsApp in this case. Anyone who relies on proprietary software for security or encryption is just asking for trouble.
The Guardian does narrative, not investigation. Well, I guess this proves that they should stick to dubious narrative as opposed to doing actual journalism.