The slippery slope argument is no doubt a valid one. But Apple specifically implemented (almost) the CSAM scanning after being threatened by multiple politicians - notably Lindsey Graham - that if they didn’t find a solution that they would legislate a backdoor into the OS for law enforcement. I think Apple was doing everything they could to appease the demand without actually violating users’ privacy. While it’s clear they failed to please end users, the solution itself was pretty ingenious.

Edit: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/senate-judiciary-commi...

Can I work remotely?

> Also that apparently Facebook stores the conversations in plain (or easily decryptable) text.

This. Even with E2EE enabled, that only protects your conversations as they travel between you and facebook's servers. It does not mean that the messages are protected from facebook being able to see them. People should have zero expectation of privacy on facebook's platform(s).

That is not true. For both messenger and whatsapp, e2ee messages are not only encrypted between you and facebook servers, they are encrypted end-to-end and only decryptable on the devices. Please reconsider your level of confidence in your understanding of this.

I do not have any information about the current state of messenger, so I cannot comment.

Here is my issue with WhatsApp though:

How will I know that Meta is still shipping an application based on an uncompromised version of the Signal protocol, without malicious modifications? Auditing is the normal answer.

Sadly, Meta is not ISO27001 certified, so there's no trustworthy external audit trail.

Barring that, who is capable of auditing Meta to confirm this? Who can see the client and server sources to confirm that there is no MITM? Only Meta, on both counts.

I have to trust their word for it and I'm incapable of trusting them.

What a joke them calling it E2EE, but they have the private keys?

The parent commenter lied (most likely due to them having no clue wtf they are talking about, what a surprise on HN).

I don't think they claim that Facebook messages are end to end encrypted. They say WhatsApp are but not ones sent via Facebook.

But aren't they sending the message to Facebook first before sending it end-to-end encrypted? To make sure it isn't anything harmful /s

Or was that feature scrapped or did I misremember?

No, you 100% don't understand what you are talking about.

I absolutely understand what I am talking about.

I only don't remember exactly.

It doesn't matter whether end (you) to end (facebook) encryption is enabled or not. That only protects data "in transit". The information is still accessible in to facebook "at rest". Enabling E2EE should give you absolutely no sense of privacy from Facebook because it doesn't exist.

This is contrary to the universally understood meaning of E2EE (as in, end to end between the two participants in the conversation). I'm not one to blindly take Facebook's PR statements at face value, but if you're making the claim that Facebook is deliberately advertising E2EE while secretly redefining the term to mean non-E2EE, you should have some strong evidence. Those sorts of linguistic gotchas don't work in real life or in a courtroom.

Is this assuming they build in client-side reporting functionality? In this case it’s not E2EE anyway.

Or are you saying it’s not E2EE unless the clients are auditable?

I use Swift Default Apps for this, which is a macOS preference pane that accomplishes the same thing for all UTIs/Apps. It's also worth checking out.

https://github.com/Lord-Kamina/SwiftDefaultApps

No wonder they keep getting my order wrong. I was using the brown heart (heroin) instead of the red heart (MDMA).

Poorly? He made $165M spewing lies, and got fined $4M. He has $161M of incentive to keep doing what he does.

> And basically everyone here is choosing cheaper Chinese goods so we're all complicit too.

The only way to not be complicit is to not have a phone. China makes them all.

> The only way to not be complicit is to not have a phone. China makes them all.

Not exactly:

Librem 5 USA: "The Freedom and Privacy of the Librem 5, plus Made in the USA Electronics with a Secure Supply Chain." https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/

"If you want a smartphone built outside China and the walled gardens of Google and Apple, Purism's Librem 5 USA may be for you." https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/07/in_brief_security/

>Librem 5 USA

The problem is that it is $2000 and doesn't even run Android. The usability of a non-android Linux on a phone is just not there yet.

> The problem is that it is $2000

Well what would you expect? Lol that's the whole point! What you're saying is you care more about price than you do where the product is made. That's fine, but just be honest with yourself about it.

I am completely fine paying $2000 if I feel like it is a decent product. The problem is I don't think it is good enough to actually use on a regular basis. I wouldn't even pay the non-US price ($1300) for the US version.

Some of these things may have been fixed, but last time I looked there were multiple issues that make it a deal breaker. The battery life is not good, the phone is huge, app compatibly is not good, cooling issues, etc.

I prefer to buy Western made products even if they cost quite a bit more money. I just want to get a decent product for the price and I don't think the Librem 5 is worth anywhere near the price.

that's a toy

Gotta start somewhere.

Keep in mind, the Nokia bricks of the days of yore. They were still fully functional telecommunication devices. Just because the Librem is probably a glorified Raspberry Pi doesn't mean it isn't worth investing in to help grow the domestic supply chain.

The world is bound by Physics and miracles facilitated by networks. When faced with a toxic hub node, you route around, and reinforce alternative routes.

The vast majority of Samsung phones are made in Vietnam, India, and South Korea. Samsung Mobile no longer owns factories in China, though they may or may not contract out manufacturing for low end phones for the local China market.

One option is to vote for politicians to increase tariffs or ban imports from China, but that would make the voters’ products/services more expensive. At the end of the day, the politician that wins elections is the politician that delivers lower priced goods/services to the voters.

Just adding my +1 to this issue. iPhone 12 mini at 83% health is really low after such a short period of time.

It's speed sensitive. I just tested in the notes app and was able to move down 6 lines moving slowly or 10 lines moving quickly.

You must have a device with 3D touch. That's physically impossible with a new iPhone using the space bar.

No, it's a new iPhone 13 Pro.