[bananabreakfast]

This is not true. Don't spread FUD. Apple does not have the ability to read your messages. All messages stored on their servers are encrypted with keys that live only on the phone.

iMessage doesn't store your decryption keys on Apple's servers unless you opt into iCloud backup which is a whole different service and security concern.

[modeless]

Most people use iCloud backup. Even if you don't, your messages are still sent to Apple by the recipient. And Apple prohibits third party backup services.

> Apple does not have the ability to read your messages.

iCloud backup is an Apple service and it has the ability to read most of your messages even if you don't use it, which makes this statement categorically false.

[peteretep]

This is completely ridiculous. iMessage is encrypted by my device and remains encrypted until it gets to the recipient device. That is what end-to-end encryption means.

That I may have given Apple my private key through a different message in no way affects that end-to-end encryption, because it is trivial to decide not to give Apple that key.

[modeless]

iCloud isn't some separate entity from iMessage. It's all Apple. And you have no option to use a different cloud backup provider.

You can decide not to give your keys to Apple, but you can't decide for all your friends to not give their keys to Apple, and the result is the same: Apple can read your messages.

And the marketing is so misleading that hardly anyone knows that Apple can read most iMessages.

[peteretep]

Sorry, let's be explicit here, as you seem intent on muddying the issue. Where, other than the endpoints, is the message decrypted when people use iMessage? Your succinct answer to that will clear this up for everyone.

[lern_too_spel]

On GCBD's servers in China. Possibly on Apple's servers in the US if they are running a wiretap. Due to the way key distribution works for iMessage, it is trivial for Apple and GCBD to do so.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22755903

[peteretep]

Your message, through several layers of indirection, relies on a security conference paper from 7 years ago[0] + the assumption that Apple haven't updated the protocol in 7 those years.

[0] https://blog.quarkslab.com/imessage-privacy.html

[giantDinosaur]

Apple can, of course, do whatever it likes, up to simply recording the screen and sending that to weird & wonderful government agencies. Like almost everything in mainstream security, it comes down to who you trust. It doesn't mean it isn't E2E though.

[modeless]

I have linked it several times in this thread. Here it is again:

"If you have iCloud Backup turned on, your backup includes a copy of the key protecting your Messages. This ensures you can recover your Messages if you lose access to iCloud Keychain and your trusted devices."

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

[peteretep]

Sorry, and where exactly outside the endpoints are the messages being decrypted?

[jachee]

Got any sources for that? Sounds a lot like FUD.

[modeless]

"If you have iCloud Backup turned on, your backup includes a copy of the key protecting your Messages. This ensures you can recover your Messages if you lose access to iCloud Keychain and your trusted devices."

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

[minitech]

Sarcasm critique: I think a quote would make it clearer:

> > iCloud isn't some separate entity from iMessage. It's all Apple.

> Got any sources for that? Sounds a lot like FUD.

[jachee]

Not sarcasm. Sources please.

[hashbig]

This is both true and false. Apple stores keys on the device so they can't read your old messages, but say they want to start reading messages of a particular user, they can simply issue a new key and store it on the device and the server and start decrypting the new messages using it.

This is why WhatsApp for example notifies users when the key of the recipient changes, and they give you a way of verifying that the both keys at both ends are identical.

[sneak]

iCloud Backup is opt out, not opt in. Apple has backed up iMessage keys for the vast majority of its users.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

[lern_too_spel]

Tuxer said "keys," not "your decryption keys." Apple distributes the public keys that each party encrypts their message with, and they route the encrypted messages through their servers. They can trivially eavesdrop on conversations by simply providing a key from a key pair they generate to a participant and reencrypting messages using the other parties' public keys after deciphering the messages.

https://threatpost.com/apple-imessage-open-to-man-in-the-mid...

[xyproto]

As a user, this is impossible to verify.