Keystone
US authorities have found a way to circumvent today’s end-to-end encryption.
no time? Blue News sums it up for you
- End-to-end encryption makes life difficult for law enforcement agencies because they can no longer read messages.
- But US authorities found a way to continue access.
- Apple and Google have so far been forced to remain silent about this matter.
Almost all messaging services these days are end-to-end encrypted. This means that even if they wanted to, service operators and smartphone manufacturers would not be able to read these messages. This means they cannot pass it on to law enforcement, which greatly frustrates them.
US authorities have now found an alternative that allows them to continue reading the messages. Specifically via push notifications, which almost every user of the messaging app has activated. Payments are forwarded through the servers of the respective operating system manufacturers, such as Apple for iPhone and Google for Android. With police and court orders, tech giants could be forced to disclose this information.
Apple and Google had to remain silent
Most messaging services provide the option to not include the entire message in the notification, but by default, the content of the message is already reflected in the preview. By having access to push messages, authorities can usually understand the entire conversation.
This practice only became known through a letter sent by US Senator Ron Wyden to Attorney General Merrick Garland. The US authorities had previously prevented Apple and Google from informing the public of this possibility of interception. This method has been used since spring 2022.
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