Security researchers call for Guardian to retract false WhatsApp backdoor story
A reminder, for people scratching their heads over how any legitimate-seeming criticism of the trade-off WhatsApp took could generate this much ire from this many experts:<p>WhatsApp has something like a billion users. Virtually none of them asked for end-to-end encryption. They don&#x27;t know that they want it, but they got it anyways when Whisper worked with WhatsApp to add Signal Protocol to WhatsApp.<p>But just because they don&#x27;t want it doesn&#x27;t mean they don&#x27;t need it. Many WhatsApp users badly need messaging security that works better than their alternatives. They don&#x27;t know it, but with the flip of a switch, they got that security. More than anything else, this is why Dan Boneh and the RealWorldCrypto steering committee awarded Moxie Marlinspike and Trevor Perrin the Levchin crypto prize this year.<p>Comes now The Guardian with a story saying &quot;WHATSAPP BACKDOORED, BAD, SWITCH&quot;. None of WhatsApp&#x27;s users are close to being able to evaluate what that means. But they know what &quot;bad&quot; and &quot;switch&quot; means. And in the global-scale game of telephone we&#x27;re all playing now, that&#x27;s what they&#x27;re doing. You don&#x27;t have to wonder: Zeynep will tell you it&#x27;s happening.<p>Nerds on Twitter are puzzled. Isn&#x27;t this a good thing? Signal is even stricter about security than WhatsApp. Wouldn&#x27;t it be better for all these people to be on Signal? WhatsApp users will in fact probably try installing Signal. They&#x27;ll even use it for a couple minutes. <i>But their peers aren&#x27;t on Signal</i>, and they&#x27;re switching immediately to messengers where they can find their friends. Not WhatsApp, though: The Guardian (or their shrill uncle on Facebook) told them not to. Nope, they&#x27;re switching to SMS.<p>State security services could not be happier about this. You can&#x27;t buy this kind of PR for money; you have to spend security researcher vanity to get it. Zeynep will tell you about this too: there are state telecom and security apparatuses right now signal-boosting The Guardian&#x27;s irresponsible report. And there are activists circulating warnings to switch from WhatsApp to other messengers. It&#x27;s a disaster: the lie is outrunning us.<p>The Guardian must retract this story, clearly and loudly. There&#x27;s a way to report on the tradeoffs WhatsApp made, but this wasn&#x27;t it; this was &quot;VACCINES MAY CAUSE AUTISM&quot;. Don&#x27;t take my word for it: look at who signed the letter, including Matthew Green, Bruce Schneier, Matt Blaze, Steve Checkoway, Chris Palmer, Dave Adrian, Bart Preneel, Jonathan Zdziarski, Steve Bellovin, and Emin Gür Sirer.