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Comment by bobthepanda | Hacker News Reader

The title is editorialized - it's not just Whatsapp, it's all social media platforms.

And it's misleading -- the article and the article's headline say nothing about adding a backdoor. There's not enough detail in the article to say exactly how this decision will affect WhatsApp.

(The headline on Bloomberg, "Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K. Police" is more restrained.)

On re-reading the sort article, I realize it only says they will be compelled to share "encrypted messages" and "information to support investigations". It never says anything about decrypting the messages. If that is literally all it is, then it is quite misleading.

What use would ciphertext be to GCHQ? I’m fairly certain that “encrypted messages” describes which messages they will have to provide in plaintext, not the format they will come in.

Your interpretation is likely right. But it's interesting to consider the other. Maybe they can get metadata from the ciphertext, such as size. Or maybe they are just interested in other metadata such as time. Or maybe they have some cryptographic attacks, maybe involving extracting a shared key from the peer's phone, or key injection via sim spoofing.

If messages are encrypted end-to-end, and laws force the ability to intercept those messages, the end-game (the backdoor) is fairly easy to tease out.

> And it's misleading

And worrying that a large number of readers interpretation of the article was influenced by a headline. We really have to do better and be vigilantly aware of how media and power influences public opinion, especially during times such as these.

> it's not just Whatsapp, it's all social media platforms.

...that are US-based. You may want to check out Threema for a valid WhatsApp replacement.

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