Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by realitythreek 1076 days ago
The way to look at this is that this is what happens when you don’t have safe and legal medical abortions.

Also this is one of the reasons why e2e encryption is so important. Meta had to comply with a warrant and wouldn’t have had to comply if it was impossible for them to.
2 comments
smoldesu 1076 days ago
End-to-end encryption only prevents in-flight access of the data by your ISP. At either "end" that data can be trivially decrypted, and probably isn't even stored on an encrypted server to boot. It would require a lot more than E2EE to meaningfully resist government surveillance.
link
realitythreek 1076 days ago
Just to clarify one possible misconception, the two ends would be the mother and daughter’s phones in this case. Meta shouldn’t have the key to decrypt accessible to them.

You’re absolutely correct that it can be decrypted on either end but Meta should resist putting a backdoor in their app that allows this. If no other reason than it compels them to be in the middle of this criminal case.

Also Facebook Messenger already enables this (https://www.facebook.com/help/messenger-app/1084673321594605) but it’s not the default. It should be.

This is just basic privacy and for sure won’t protect you from a focused government attack but it’s a start.

link
smoldesu 1076 days ago
This is the part where things get ambiguous and it's hard to say how things go. On paper, you are correct and I 100% agree with everything in this comment. In practice, I have no reason to believe anything Facebook says correlates with the implementation of their encryption.

I want to believe it's a safe system, but as-always it comes down to trusting trust. Without accountability, it's hard to take WhatsApp or iMessage or any E2EE service at face value. E2EE leaves so many exploits on the table that I basically treat it as marketing fluff.

link
tzs 1076 days ago
> The way to look at this is that this is what happens when you don’t have safe and legal medical abortions.

Most places with legal abortions don't seem to allow them at 28 weeks so that would not have helped in this case.

link
realitythreek 1076 days ago
One assumes they would have taken care of it during the legal timeframe. Not relevant if they didn’t in this case.

There’s also other options still by going to other states, but the point is that by making it illegal you’re increasing the chances of it being unsafe.

But anyway, that’s as far as I’m wading into that subject here. Don’t feel like getting into politics so much as practicalities.

link
tzs 1076 days ago
> One assumes they would have taken care of it during the legal timeframe. Not relevant if they didn’t in this case.

Abortion at up to 20 weeks was legal in her state at the time.

link
realitythreek 1076 days ago
You are correct but I don’t think that invalidates the point that if you want safe abortions you need to make them legal and regulated.

I have no idea why they chose pills on the Internet but I know that more people will do it themselves if they can’t legally go to a healthcare provider.

link