Pretty much every single person I know outside of the Bay Area and not working in tech believes that the government and the corresponding corporations running the service are reading all of their messages on:
* Whatsapp
* FB Messenger
* iMessage
* Hangouts
They also all believe that the police can look at their Facebook posts because they have special access.
This is precisely why there was minimal reaction to the Snowden revelations - what revelations?
Your claim was not that Google or Apple can update their software at will, it was specifically that Google or Apple can read existing WhatsApp messages that have been already sent (particularly ones that utilize e2e). This is not something that security engineers agree with on record. Can you find a cadre of security engineers that agree with that?
Further, there is the implication in your comment that Android and iOS are less secure than some other format (assumedly a linux or bsd variant desktop OS) for secure messaging. I'd be shocked if you could find a group of security engineers that even agreed with that. You certainly will find lots of them that disagree, so its in question at least.
I'd go further and suggest that if I made the proposition that from a security perspective you were best served by using e2e encrypted WhatsApp purely from an iOS or Chromebook that I'd gain more agreement from the security community than any other proposition about messaging formats other than "don't use electronic messaging for secret things".
> Your claim was not that Google or Apple can update their software at will, it was specifically that Google or Apple can read existing WhatsApp messages that have been already sent (particularly ones that utilize e2e).
Yes, being able to update their software at will enables them to read messages that have been already sent, even with e2e encryption.
> Further, there is the implication in your comment that Android and iOS are less secure than some other format (assumedly a linux or bsd variant desktop OS) for secure messaging.
Endpoint security is a can of worms. There is no simple conclusion to be taken from my comment, except for the literal meaning.
If you are implying that any system with auto updates could swap in malicious software I'll buy that. But you pointed out iOS and Android specifically. Most (all?) OS have auto update features and by enabling them you open yourself up to this vector.
> This is precisely why there was minimal reaction to the Snowden revelations - what revelations?
Or perhaps the 1984 Orwellian explanation - fear of surveillance curtails dissent.
E.g. perhaps there was minimal reaction because while people had always joked about the Govt. reading their messages, when Snowden revealed it was utterly true, and way worse than anyone had supposed, they became afraid to voice dissent about surveillance.
They were right to fear this as Snowden's stated reason for whistleblowing was not the existence of mass surveillance but because the mass surveillance was not for national security but its primary goal was to protect the program of mass surveillance.
Snowden revealed this: that the primary mission of the spying was to keep the spying secret and those who opposed the spying faced the greatest extra-legal retaliatory attacks. [1]
As the recent cataclysmic cyber attacks have shown national defense was not a priority for those 3 letter agencies developing weaponised exploits.
The weaponised exploits they screwed us all over by letting fall into the wrong hands, e.g. Wannacry an American state sponsored cyber-weapon funded by US tax-payer monies that wrecked the UK's National Health Service and now threatens international shipping - oopsie.
* Whatsapp * FB Messenger * iMessage * Hangouts
They also all believe that the police can look at their Facebook posts because they have special access.
This is precisely why there was minimal reaction to the Snowden revelations - what revelations?