Encryption prevents Meta from accessing chats, but it is powerless when someone logs directly into a user’s phone, the company’s CEO has said.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged that US authorities, including the CIA, can access WhatsApp messages by remotely logging into users’ devices, effectively bypassing the platform’s end-to-end encryption.
Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Friday, Zuckerberg explained that while WhatsApp’s encryption prevents Meta from viewing message content, it does not protect against physical access to a user’s phone.
His comments came in the context of a question by Rogan about Tucker Carlson’s quest to set up an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In February last year, while speaking about finally succeeding in talking to Putin after three years of failed attempts, Carlson blamed the US authorities, namely the NSA and the CIA, for stalling his efforts. According to Carlson, the agencies spied on him by tapping his messages and emails, and leaked his intentions to the media, which “spooked” Moscow from talking to him. Rogan asked Zuckerberg to explain how this could have happened given encryption safeguards that are supposed to protect messages.
“The thing that encryption does that’s really good is it makes it so that the company that’s running the service doesn’t see it. So if you’re using WhatsApp, there’s no point at which the Meta servers see the contents of that message,” Zuckerberg said, noting that even if someone were to hack into Meta’s databases, they could not access users’ private texts. The Signal messaging app, which Carlson used, uses the same encryption, according to Zuckerberg, so the same rules apply. However, he noted that encryption does not stop law enforcement from viewing messages stored on devices.
“What they do is have access to your phone. So it doesn’t matter if anything’s encrypted, they could just see it in plain sight,” he clarified. Zuckerberg mentioned tools such as Pegasus, a spyware developed by the Israeli company NSO Group, which can be covertly installed on mobile phones to access data.
According to Zuckerberg, the fact that users’ private messages can be jeopardized by directly breaking into their devices is the reason Meta came up with disappearing messages, where one can have one’s message thread erased after a certain period of time.
“If someone has compromised your phone and they can see everything that’s going on there, then obviously they can see stuff as it comes in… So having it be encrypted and disappearing, I think is a pretty good kind of standard of security and privacy,” he stated.
Zuckerberg’s remarks come amid ongoing debates about digital privacy and government surveillance. While end-to-end encryption is lauded for protecting user data, agencies like the CIA and FBI have argued it can impede efforts to combat crime and terrorism. A 2021 FBI training document indicated that US law enforcement can gain limited access to encrypted messages from services like iMessage, Line, and WhatsApp, but not from platforms such as Signal, Telegram, Threema, Viber, WeChat, or Wickr. Additionally, while encrypted messages cannot be intercepted during transmission, reports indicate that backups stored in cloud services may be accessible to law enforcement if an encryption key is attached.
Image credit: Anton
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Lizard boy is a liar. They ALL read EVERYTHING. They all spy. If the Democrats’ hyena in a wig had won the election, he’d be spying and censoring Facebook even HARDER right now. Just get off that sh!tty platform altogether.
Signal was paid for and setup by the CIA. At this time, the one true app you can communicate privately over is Session.
Session uses TOR Onion routing.
Session does not use your phone number. It generates one.
Session does not notify your contact list you have joined.
Session does not ask you your name, email address or anything that identifies you.
Session is not as easy to set up. Setup works best if your mate is beside you as sharing your new very long alphanumeric phone number is easier with the built-in QR code option.
Session can take up to say 60 seconds to connect a call. This is likely due to the encrypting/decrypting between 3 sets of routing. Once the call is connected, it works OK.
Is Session 100%. Not fully. Privacy laws are not international. Five eyes was set up to get around privacy by asking another nation to listen, record, track and watch under the guise of keeping us safe. Those who write the operating system are immoral and corrupt. They call them security updates, but it is not for your security. Leaving your phone at home or in the car and talking to your friend away from all technology is.
Above all this, you are only talking crap anyway. Internet surfing, video, and phone time is wasting your in person one on one bond with family and close friends. Don’t waste it on gaming, social media or technology. What I have found is, like everything, time becomes more valuable when it’s running out. Don’t wait until there is not much sand left in your hourglass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ0p6txUoAQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXBDYivEGhY