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Comment by throw0101c

15 hours ago

> Tiktok has direct messages, they don't even call them private.

It may not be called that, but what are users expecting? Some folks may later be surprised when a warrant gets issued (e.g., from a divorce judge).

12 comments

throw0101c

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giancarlostoro  15 hours ago

If you are a grown adult and dont do research on “messaging apps” (which Tik Tok is not) then thats really on you.

  • foobarchu  11 hours ago

    This viewpoint isn't a slippery slope, it's a runaway train.

    "You moved into a neighborhood with lead pipes? That's on you, should have done more research" "Your vitamins contained undisclosed allergens? You're an adult, and it didn't say it DIDN'T contain those" "Passwords stolen because your provider stored them in plaintext? They never claimed to store them securely, so it's really on you"

    • AlexandrB  6 hours ago

      Legislating that everyone must always be safe regardless of what app they use is a one-way ticket to walled gardens for everything. This kind of safety is the rationale behind things like secure boot, Apple's App Store, and remote attestation.

      Also consider what this means for open source. No hobbyist can ship an IM app if they don't go all the way and E2E encrypt (and security audit) the damn thing. The barriers of entry this creates are huge and very beneficial for the already powerful since they can afford to deal with this stuff from day one.

      1 reply →

    • sleepybrett  9 hours ago

      this isn't anything new, however. No messaging has been actually private since forever, that's why encryption was invented. To keep secrets and to pass those secrets in a way that can be observed without revealing the secret.

      Telephones can be tapped, people sold special boxes that would encrypt/decrypt that audio before passing it to the phone or to the ear. Mail can be opened, covertly or not. AIM was in the clear (I think at one point, fully in the clear, later probably in the clear as far as the aol servers were concerned)...

      Unless the app/method is directly lying to users about being e2ee it's not a slippery slope, it's the status quo. Now there are some apps out there that I think i've seen that are lying. They are claiming they are 'encrypted' but fail to clarify that it's only private on the wire, like the aim story.. the message is encrypted while it flys to the 'switchboard' where it's plain text and then it's put wrapped in encryption on the wire to send it to the recipient.

      The claim here that actually makes me chuckle is somehow trying to paint e2ee as 'unsafe' for users.

  • oarsinsync  15 hours ago

    If you are a grown adult and don't do research on "<insert any topic that could have a material negative impact on your life, but that is not currently on your radar as being a topic that could have a material negative impact on your life>" then that's really on you.

    Unfortunately, this doesn't scale.

    • hogwasher  5 hours ago

      It definitely ignores that many people don't have time. If someone is working over 40 hours per week, plus maybe doing unpaid labor taking care of kids or elders, where are people supposed to find the time and energy to brush up on a million different topics they don't even know they might not know enough about? Especially if they might also have medical issues, or hobbies, or want to have any time at all to relax.

      Obviously, one way to improve the situation would be to make sure people are paid fairly and not overworked and have access to good and affordable or free childcare and elder-care and medical care, but corporations don't want that either. If anything, they're incentivised to disempower workers and keep them uninformed, and to get as much time out of them as they can for as little money as possible.

  • red-iron-pine  10 hours ago

    80% of the population does not and will never do that level of deep dive on apps

    same discussion for any form of technology be it TVs or changing their car's oil

    the deliberate app-store-ification of all things computer is also designed to keep people from asking those questions -- just download in and install, pleb.

    it's why the Zoomers can't email attachments or change file types: all of the computers they grew up with were designed so they never had to understand what happens under the hood.