In the last few years phones and apps have been touting themselves as better than other phones/services because their messaging has end-to-end encryption, or some other variant of secure messaging. Why do we care?
Edit: Thanks for the answers, everyone!
In: 140
To answer the original question.
Many people think that messages go from my phone to your phone in a closed tube. But, in fact every wireless communication is a shout in the open air. Our devices are shouting all the time in all directions.
If you are on WiFi, the shout is picked up by a listener device nearby, which is your WiFi router. Then it forwards the message via cable. Every other device in the area can also hear the shout, they just don’t care. On the other end the other persons WiFi also shouts out the message, and the listener device is the target phone. Again, in fact every other WiFi devices hear the message.
If you are on mobile data, like 4g or something, the shout is even louder so it can reach the mobile tower. And it goes every direction.
The reason why normally the devices disregard the messages not meant to them, going back and forth, is that they are *programmed* to do so by good guys. Bad guys can totally program listener devices, even a simple phone, to catch messages.
And why do we care? Because we send a lot of sensitive information. A simple birthday wish in SMS tells everyone who listens that this person has birthday. Birthday is used as one of the identification questions over telephone, because it’s assumed not to be known by everyone. And I didn’t even mention oppressive political systems listening to your opinions.
Do yes, that’s why we care.
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