Google Accused of Showing 'Total Contempt' for Android Users' Privacy (bleepingcomputer.com)

On the heels of a terse privacy debate, Google may have found another thing to worry about: its attempt to rethink the traditional texting system. From a report: Joe Westby is Amnesty International's Technology and Human Rights researcher. Recently, in response to Google's launch of a new messaging service called "Chat", Westby argued that Google, "shows total contempt for Android users' privacy."

"With its baffling decision to launch a messaging service without end-to-end encryption, Google has shown utter contempt for the privacy of Android users and handed a precious gift to cybercriminals and government spies alike, allowing them easy access to the content of Android users' communications. Following the revelations by CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden, end-to-end encryption has become recognized as an essential safeguard for protecting people's privacy when using messaging apps. With this new Chat service, Google shows a staggering failure to respect the human rights of its customers," Westby contended. Westby continued, saying: "In the wake of the recent Facebook data scandal, Google's decision is not only dangerous but also out of step with current attitudes to data privacy."

Comments

Guilty!

[amiga3D]

Guilty as charged. I think it's time for some serious anti-trust action in Federal court.

Re:Guilty!

[rickb928]

It's SMS. PITA to encrypt, both parties need to do so the same way.

And no, iMessage isn't SMS.

Re:Guilty!

[TechyImmigrant]

Guilty as charged. I think it's time for some serious anti-trust action in Federal court.

Nope. It's messaging on the cell phone signalling protocols, just like SMS. This is different to an application running on the top.

When you are defining such protocols, the governments of the world require "Lawful Access" laws to be adhered to. When we were working on WiMax, the FBI turned up to the meetings to discuss the LA features in the protocol.

This is why you do secure messaging from and app, over IP.

SMS and it's brethren will never be secure and there's nothing Google or anyone else can do about it, without a major change of behavior on the part of governments.

Re:Guilty!

[mikael]

You can always create a message, encrypt it, run it through uuencode, then send it as an SMS. Reverse the process at the other end.

Re: Guilty!

[rickb928]

Then we need to redesign SMS.

Re:Guilty!

[TheRaven64]

In a previous thread, someone suggested generating and storing one-time pads on phones. It would be quite interesting to use bluetooth when you're physically near one of your contacts to automatically exchange a few tens of MBs of random noise and then use that as a OTP for future messages sent to them. For large attachments (e.g. photos), you could send a 256-bit AES key and then use symmetric encryption for the contents, but still have the OTP for text messages. 10MBs of OTP key would be more text messages than most people send in a year (around 75K, assuming that they are all full length).

It would be an interesting experiment...

Back door

[sit1963nz]

Google has seriously looked at the best means of supplying an encryption "back door" and it turns out the best way is no encryption , let everyone know the alphabet agencies can spy on you, and a warning not to post anything important.

Most people dont care

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

You set up web site and offer some trivial thing like 25 cents off a loaf of bread, and ask users to setup an account. They will use the same user name password they use for their bank account, and give you all the security question answers too.

It is debatable, whether Facebook and Google show more contempt towards privacy than the users themselves

Re:Most people dont care

[Anonymous Coward]

It is debatable, whether Facebook and Google show more contempt towards privacy than the users themselves.

You say it's contempt. I say it's naivety. It'd be illegal to use the username/password on another site, and the naively think they can trust companies not do illegal stuff. This probably stems from the delusion that if a company were to do such a thing, someone would actually be punished.

Take the above and consider sites like Facebook that allow you to set things as "private". It's no longer a question of people trying to hack routers to wiretap everyone's packets. Facebook is evil and will just look through your stuff. Consider the whole Scroogle campaign by Microsoft. I think what they learned from it is, people just don't believe Google employees care enough to read their mail. So, Microsoft has certain taken that as a message to follow Google's example.

In the end, the only safe thing to do is to have everyone you care about switch to an OS that won't spy on you, use services that won't spy on you, and use end-to-end encryption with a public standard that prevents any possible backdooring. Feel free to set that up.

End-to-end encryption

[AHuxley]

Wont someone think of the ads and profits.
All that real time data to collect and sell.
You are the product.

Except that it's a protocol, not a server

[Jason69]

Google "Chat" is a protocol much like "SMS". It's not a service in and of itself but the underlying carriage for services to ride on top. Those services should absolutely include encryption but that is not the protocol's job to handle. "Joe Westby is Amnesty International's Technology and Human Rights researcher" Sounds like this research should do a little more research.

Re:Except that it's a protocol, not a server

[Anubis IV]

Google "Chat" is a protocol much like "SMS". It's not a service in and of itself but the underlying carriage for services to ride on top. Those services should absolutely include encryption but that is not the protocol's job to handle.

Actually, it is, because end-to-end encryption cannot feasibly exist* unless a key exchange mechanism is defined by the protocol. Moreover, it's clear that you're thoroughly confused both about what end-to-end encryption actually means and what Chat actually is.

Encrypting each link in the chain—which is what you're talking about when you suggest it's a server's/service's job to handle encryption—is not the same thing as end-to-end encryption. End-to-end encryption means that only the sender and the recipient are privy to the messages: not the server, not a service, not anyone else in the chain. For that to happen, the message that you're sending has to be encrypted on your device in a way that only your recipient's device can decrypt. For all of that to work, you need a key exchange mechanism baked into the protocol in some way, since otherwise your device would have no idea what keys to use. The individual links along the chain may additionally be encrypted, but even if they weren't the message would still be end-to-end encrypted.

At this point, end-to-end encryption is simply table stakes for anyone joining the chat game. Anyone trying to enter the field with a chat system that doesn't offer end-to-end encryption is declaring their intent to scan every single one of your private messages for profit.

As for your protestation that it's a protocol not a service, it actually is a service, in the same way that SMS is both a protocol and a service. Chat supports richer content and a few other niceties that put it above SMS, but it clings to almost all of SMS's flaws, in that it isn't end-to-end encrypted, it's dependent on carrier support, and it's been superseded by far superior products from other companies (e.g. iMessages, WhatsApp, etc.).

*Okay, technically it can, but what must necessarily happen when using those protocols is that people have to share their public keys with each other in some other manner, such as a real life exchange or a trusted, third-party service, at which point those practices become de facto aspects of the protocol as a result of their necessity. Moreover, no protocol of that sort is suitable for use by the general population, hence why those sorts of protocols are relegated to users who are willing to sacrifice any notion of convenience in the interest of achieving the best security.

It's not a Google thing, though.

[shess]

While Google is putting support behind RCS, it's not a Google thing, it's an industry-standard evolution of SMS. Google really should do better and offer end-to-end encryption, but that would only work in their walled garden, and they would still have to interoperate with everyone outside of that garden, who they have no control over.

Re:End to end isn't the Google way

[dns4599]

You know allo exists? By default it does not use end to end encryption but you can enable it if you want to.

The flood gates are open

[Opportunist]

Now that the whole Facebook shit hit the fan, we can finally hope that this whole privacy destroying data collection madness gets some attention.

Keep the stories coming. And make sure that they keep the steam they have now.

And yes, it doesn't even matter what kind of story. Few people will actually understand what's really going on anyway. But what matters is volume. If there is story after story after story about how companies destroy our privacy, people will finally listen. Not because they understand, but because of the amount that surfaces.

Re:End to end isn't the Google way

[OneHundredAndTen]

You know allo exists?

For how much longer now? With Allo, Google seems to be its inveterate tradition of dropping projects after a while. The truth is though that not many seem to be using it anyway.

FUCK YOUR PRIVACY

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey asshole -- you use my code, then you are my bitch

-- love, Sergey

Joe Westby is an idiot

[viperidaenz]

Chat isn't a replacement for any encrypted communications tool.
It's a replacement for SMS, which is also not encrypted.
It's required to be backward compatible with SMS, because not all networks or phones will support it. You can't do end-to-end encryption when one end doesn't support encryption.
It's required to be operated by cellular carriers, so to be able to be operated in various countries, access to messages is a requirement, like SMS.
It's required to not have a central set of servers that are operated by a single company, like iMessage, WhatsApp, etc.

Why would anyone *EVER* **EVER** consider Google?

[AbRASiON]

WHY?

I own an Android phone but Google are _RETARDED_ with messaging apps.
The amount they've made in the past decade and either modified or cancelled is UTTERLY mind boggling, it's fascinating, it's ... it's incredible just how poor they've handled this.

I can't put in to words properly just how confusing and terrible it is. They have failed in every conceivable way. They just can NOT stop making new ones, killing old ones, damaging features. It's a total and utter disaster.

I use whatsapp and 'normal' SMS / text. I won't use Google Chat, Google Hangouts or Allo or anything because they WILL terminate / ruin it in time.

All they had to do was copy iMessage and have some kind of "SMS from your PC / ipad" functionality and they would've been golden, but nah, they decided to do an utterly, utterly miserable job.

For once, not Google's fault here

[Etcetera]

End to end encryption is fine, but Google (for once) is doing the right thing by having a telco standard instead of an over-the-top app sending God-knows-what.

Would I like to see end-to-end encryption? Yes. I'd like to see SS7 issues fixed first. There are plenty of E2E secure messaging solutions out there and I can't see why RCS is worse than MMS as a solution for enchanced SMS service.

At the very least, this is a fully interoperable system, not tied to Google, Inc or any specific carrier.

That's a Good Thing.