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WhatsApp Balks at India's Demand To Break Encryption (venturebeat.com)

Posted by msmash on from the tussle-continues dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: As WhatsApp scrambles to figure out technology solutions to address some of the problems its service has inadvertently caused in developing markets, India's government has proposed one of its own: bring traceability to the platform so false information can be traced to its source. But WhatsApp indicated to VentureBeat over the weekend that complying with that request would undermine the service's core value of protecting user privacy. "We remain deeply committed to people's privacy and security, which is why we will continue to maintain end-to-end encryption for all of our users," the company said.

The request for traceability, which came from India's Ministry of Electronics & IT last week, was more than a suggestion. The Ministry said Facebook-owned WhatsApp would face legal actions if it failed to deliver. "When rumours and fake news get propagated by mischief mongers, the medium used for such propagation cannot evade responsibility and accountability. If they remain mute spectators they are liable to be treated as abettors and thereafter face consequent legal action," the government said. India is WhatsApp's largest market, with more than 250 million users. The country is struggling to contain the spread of fake news on digital platforms. Hoax messages and videos on the platform have incited multiple riots, costing more than two dozen lives in the country this year alone. Allowing message tracing, though, would likely undo the privacy and security that WhatsApp's one billion users worldwide expect from the service. Bringing traceability and accountability to WhatsApp would mean breaking end-to-end encryption on the platform, the company told VentureBeat.

9 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. side with the authorities here by gravewax · · Score: 3, Insightful

    India has a serious problem at the moment with malicious rumours spread by social media where the intent is to get people injured or killed. tracability with a warrant I don't see as a breach of privacy or security as the person put it out to the world for everyone to see intentionally anyway, no where does it say you have a right to anonymously causes such mischief. All WhatsApp need to do is attach unique identifiers to messages when created so that when forwarded they can be traced back to the source, obviously the police already have the message so they don't need to break encryption or breach anyones privacy, what they need to know is who started the whole shitshow X that got Y people murdered.

    1. Re:side with the authorities here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      All WhatsApp need to do is attach unique identifiers to messages when created so that when forwarded they can be traced back to the source

      This is sort of why separation of powers and freedom of speech is so very vital. Yes, your example would be a valid reason for a court order and tracing, if it were possible.

      Of course, in a country where heads of state regularly assassinate political enemies, such tracing helps them too, and if there is a way to do it, a government can likely figure it out.

      Even in the US we just had our leader threaten to cancel security clearances of those who spoke out against him, which for some in the private sector, who may do unrelated work that requires a security clearance, well, that would mean they are out of work for exercising freedom of speech. He has also threatened to open up libel laws and various other ways to get even. Any republican who speaks against him gets replaced and he has like a 90% approval rating among republicans who say they are defending freedom.

      I'm not saying we shouldn't track these people down. I'm just saying you get the bad with the good. Encryption was originally classed as a munition, and in some ways it still is. Encryption these days is almost a requirement to be able to speak freely in some areas, since otherwise you might get reprisal from your boss or someone in government.

      Hell look at Peter Strok (sp?) Admittedly they didn't use encryption. He just didn't think they would start searching all his work texts, but he was basically guilty of seeing Trump run for office, forming opinions, and not significantly letting those opinions affect his work. Certainly any aid in tracing a message back to its source could have far reaching consequences in the future.

    2. Re:side with the authorities here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      you are misunderstanding. You do not need to record anything within the encryption or about the user and this doesn't provide any mechanism to view the messages themselves. merely a endpoint that the message originated from. the company has no keys to view the message so even if they wanted to they can't provide access to the message itself or for that matter it doesn't even need to record that the message was even sent, all they store is tracability endpoints. e.g. GUID 1 = client a, GUID 2 = client b, then when supplied with a warrant of who is GUID 2 they can say it is client b.

    3. Re: side with the authorities here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If an anonymous "tip off" with no evidence is enough to incite you to murder I have no sympathy

    4. Re:side with the authorities here by sjames · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I smell BS!

      What'sApp is by no means anonymous. You can see exactly who sent you the message. So, the procedure is as follows. Arrest rioters. Access rioter's phones. See who sent them the message(s) that kicked off the riots. Get a warrant for those phones. Iterate that until you converge on the offender.

      If that's not good enough, ask What'sApp to create What'sAppIndia which tells the user that due to demands from their government they (and only they) will have Big other invited to the party and if they don't like it, they should speak to their government about it.

    5. Re:side with the authorities here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Did you actually read what the parent poster wrote?

      If you gain the possibility to track villains, you gain the possibility to track dissidents and opponents as well.

      It doesn't matter if you can *directly* see the message, just as it didn't matter with the text saying kidnappers are at large to steal your children. In both instances, once the cat is out of the bag, you could trace the message back to its origin. Whether it's a text of a scammer or of a whistleblower.

      It's not difficult to comprehend, no?

    6. Re:side with the authorities here by MMC+Monster · · Score: 3, Insightful

      On the one hand this looks both reasonable and quite easy to implement.

      On the other hand ... what if this wasn't India. What if this was an oppressive regime which wants to arrest/kill dissenters?

      If they have the message ID of one person, they can track everyone that person was in contact with, identifying their entire "cell".

      All they would need is a court order.

      --
      Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
    7. Re:side with the authorities here by Mathinker · · Score: 3, Interesting

      > the only way

      Citation needed. This whole thing is like the flame wars over "the solution to spam".

      I have a different "solution". Hold the policeman of the village "accountable", instead.

      Interesting, however that this is modded up. WTF?

    8. Re: side with the authorities here by farble1670 · · Score: 3

      No different to the US. US history is littered with such incidents

      Dude, this isn't US v. India. Everyone here that hasn't murdered someone because social media said so is free to judge those that do as retarded monsters. Because they are. No matter where they live.