eli5 How can intelligence agencies intercept traffic if its encrypted

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Hi,
I was reading [this](https://www.businessinsider.com/passenger-faces-120k-fines-after-fighter-jets-scrambled-for-bomb-joke-2024-1?amp) article, in which some kid made a joke about bombing the plane to his friend/s over snapchat just before boarding. The message was intercepted by the intelligence agencies and some response military planes were sent to intercept the plane.
So the assumption is that airport network traffic is heavy sniffed and analysed by local intelligence agencies but based on the following facts:
– snapchat is end to end encrypted
– traffic goes over HTTPS
– he sent the message to his friend/s who clearly didn’t report him for a prank

How was the intelligence agency able to figure out the content of the message?

In: Technology

8 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

End to End just encrypts the traffic while traversing the internet or certain servers.

It needs to be decrypted once the traffic reached its destination.

At this point this cleartext traffic can be read. Technically this cleartext can be send to any server without you knowing. Most Apps are closed source, so you don’t know what happens to your text or picture after your application decrypted it.

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