As evidence, the lawsuit cites unnamed “courageous whistleblowers” who allege that WhatsApp and Meta employees can request to view a user’s messages through a simple process, thus bypassing the app’s end-to-end encryption. “A worker need only send a ‘task’ (i.e., request via Meta’s internal system) to a Meta engineer with an explanation that they need access to WhatsApp messages for their job,” the lawsuit claims. “The Meta engineering team will then grant access – often without any scrutiny at all – and the worker’s workstation will then have a new window or widget available that can pull up any WhatsApp user’s messages based on the user’s User ID number, which is unique to a user but identical across all Meta products.”
“Once the Meta worker has this access, they can read users’ messages by opening the widget; no separate decryption step is required,” the 51-page complaint adds. “The WhatsApp messages appear in widgets commingled with widgets containing messages from unencrypted sources. Messages appear almost as soon as they are communicated – essentially, in real-time. Moreover, access is unlimited in temporal scope, with Meta workers able to access messages from the time users first activated their accounts, including those messages users believe they have deleted.” The lawsuit does not provide any technical details to back up the rather sensational claims.
It’s already a known risk, because WA uses centralized key management and servers, and always has regardless what Meta says. If you believe their bullshit, then I feel sad for you.
Also…you don’t think that LAWYERS willing to go up against Meta would have rock solid proof from these whistleblowers FIRST before filing a lawsuit?
C’mon now, buddy.
This is not how civil court works. It’s not trial by combat. There is no standard for the quality of lawsuits filed. And despite what the ambulance chasers say on TV, Layers get paid even when they loose.
“alleged in a lawsuit…” is the same level of credibility as “they out here saying…”.
It doesn’t matter if it’s criminal or civil. The costs to bring such a case are massive, and you’re leaving yourself open to a behemoth like Meta just dragging out the case for lengthy periods of time which drastically increase those costs.
No law firm files suit against a giant company like this unless they have rock solid proof they will, at the very least, land a settlement plus recuperation of costs. Just not a thing.
I’m surprised anyone is surprised. It’s been known since WhatsApp came out that it’s not true e2ee because meta holds your keys.
Well they did this whole stupid “rebranding” of it becoming e2e after Facebook bought them a few years back, but literally every security researchers was like “Nahhhh, pass”.
considering that you can decrypt facebook e2e encryption with a 6 digit security pin… yea Facebook at least has the private keys backed up server side.
I don’t use any Meta products, so not sure how you mean. If you are a user that has been sending e2e messages, then you can surely decrypt said messages if you’re a participant in those messages transactions.
So, with facebook if you lose your device, you can register a new device to the account and recover your messages using a 6 digit security pin or a recovery code.
This means that your messages are stored in decryptable format either via a private key being stored, or as a separate server encrypted form in a backup.
I just had to go through this with my grandfather a few months back.