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by bradley13 953 days ago
Because you trust closeed-source from Microsoft, Google and Apple? Seriously?

Open standards, open-source code. That's really the only option for code people are supposed to trust.

2 comments

All security is built on trust. If your threat model is trust nothing, then the solution is do nothing. What I’m talking about is called anchoring, where you force a critical flow through a single anchor by design, and thus reduce the places that you have to audit. It’s the same reason they say that all security should be baked in the keys (strength, mgmt, exchange, etc…).

Do I trust Apple and Microsoft? I think sort of.

I don’t trust them to be perfect, but if your prior is to say that you don’t trust them at all, then it means you basically can’t use them at all bc no amount of security will get around an untrustworthy OS.

They control what gets displayed on screen, they control how memory is laid out and accessed for a program. There are already so many more important things we entrust to them. So, yeah, I prefer OS’s (all vendors) to provide APIs, and for app stores to enforce their use. I especially would trust this more than EU laws, and I certainly would trust that more than everyone doing their own thing, regardless if it’s open source.

If for no other better reason I trust the OS more, since all of these open solutions will still run on those supposedly untrustworthy os vendors.

You basically have to trust your OS, Don’t you think? Otherwise, the answer is you do nothing.

Why wouldn't you trust them? To some extent at least?

I mean if they are claiming their messaging system is E2E and it turns out it isn't the cost to them (not only financial) would be much higher than whatever they earn from having access to your data.

> Why wouldn't you trust them?

Because historically we've already caught these companies doing dubious things and they're still in business, still making money hand over fist.

For example, Facebook saying they would only use phone numbers for two-factor authentication and just ignoring that because it was profitable.

Or Biobank saying they wouldn't share private medical data with insurance companies and then just ignoring that because it was profitable.

Or Microsoft and its subsidiaries bribing foreign officials to gain sales and block use of FOSS alternatives because it was profitable.

The naughty list is long and it doesn't seem to cause much reputational damage if any.

> because it was profitable

Yeah I agree that's the core issue. I'd only "trust" them because I don't see how promising E2E and then breaking it on a widescale would be profitable for them