This all occurred rapidly in the last week due to fears stemming from rumours circulating about Pakistani ISI backed Taliban gaining technical intercept capability.
True or not, the rumours had a significant effect on many Afghans.
So... from Facebook to Facebook?
(Edit: As was revealed before, WA told the creator of the encryption protocol used in Signal to change things about it, when implementing the protocol for WA, which enable WA in theory to hold a third party decryption key.)
[ https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/inform... ]
> In the ordinary course of providing our service, WhatsApp does not store messages once they are delivered or transaction logs of such delivered messages. Undelivered messages are deleted from our servers after 30 days. As stated in the WhatsApp Privacy Policy, we may collect, use, preserve, and share user information if we have a good-faith belief that it is reasonably necessary to (a) keep our users safe, (b) detect, investigate, and prevent illegal activity, (c) respond to legal process, or to government requests, (d) enforce our Terms and policies. This may include information about how some users interact with others on our service. We also offer end-to-end encryption for our services, which is always activated. End-to-end encryption means that messages are encrypted to protect against WhatsApp and third parties from reading them. Additional information about WhatsApp's security can be found here.
So only metadata and everything that's not e2e.
Certainly, if the demands were complied with, metadata alone would be sufficient to rebuild your communication network if the Taliban already know who you are and what are you talking about.
This is probably the best info anyway. What you speak about with a suspected enemy of the state is a lot less important for oppressive regimes than the fact that you (regularly) do. The content can be obtained from in person ... discussion. When a service doesn't care about presumption of innocence or torturing a few extra citizens, meta is probably all they need.
Now I do not think Taliban itself would be able to pull it off, but if the ISI is involved it is another story.
This might be what other voices relate to: https://then24.com/2021/06/18/moxie-marlinspike-the-hacker-w...:
> “All messages on WhatsApp are encrypted, but Facebook can, voluntarily or at the request of a government, turn it off for certain users or certain areas. And we cannot know when it does, ”explains Jan Penfrat, political advisor to the activists network.
As to the trustworthiness of those sources, I do not have information.
(Even with e2e encryption, they still have clear text metadata which oppressive governments may find useful - if they know you talked to a known dissident, they may assume you are one too, even if they can’t see what you said.)
Is there somewhere credible I can learn more about the connection between the taliban and the ISI?
https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/117472/DP%2018.pdf
https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/afghan2/Afghan0701-02.htm
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/08/06/a...