The impacts are getting closer and closer: German and European politicians are calling for more opportunities for monitoring communication. The postal and telecommunications secrecy of the Basic Law as well as respect for private life and the protection of correspondence in the European Convention on Human Rights are to be weakened in order to allow investigators access to confidential communication. For this purpose, back doors or secondary keys are to be implemented in security systems, and operators of communication services must issue messages from their users. The model is mass surveillance, as the American and British intelligence services operate, when they divert and evaluate large parts of the network traffic at the Internet hubs.
Michael Spehr (misp.), Technology & Engine, Economy Follow I follow
Anyone who insists on the fundamental right of confidential communication must think about it and use cryptographically secure end-to-end encryption. According to current knowledge, it cannot be cracked even with highly equipped and expensive hardware. The message is encrypted at the Sender and the intended recipient can decrypt it. The key is only available to sender and receiver, it is not located on a server where the message is also located. And it cannot be deduced or calculated.
To send the receiver the key of the transmitter, the receiver publishes a public key, the Public Key. It can only be encrypted and not decrypted. The sender encrypts his message with the recipient’s public key, and since only the recipient has his own private key, only he can decrypt the message.
Hardware used must be safe
End-to-end is considered safe. However, attackers can, for example, install a Trojan on a mobile phone or computer that takes screenshots of the messages, or a keylogger that records all keystrokes. So you have to make sure that the hardware used is also safe.
If A and B want to communicate confidentially, the easiest way is to use an iPhone and a messenger such as Signal or Threema. All exchanged messages are automatically encrypted end-to-end, and the two can even transfer files such as PDF or Word documents from iPhone to iPhone. Larger Messenger groups also communicate safely. Why an iPhone? In principle, the encryption of signal and threema on Android is just as secure. But the hardware is easier to attack, which happens regularly. Every day there are new reports.
Why no Whatsapp? Whatsapp also uses end-to-end, but transfers an unreasonable amount of metadata to its parent company Facebook. Metadata is not the content of communication, but who communicates with whom from where and when. Without knowing the content of the messages, you can learn a lot about the communication between A and B by constantly tapping the metadata. For example, that the two regularly exchange early in the morning and late in the evening, meet often and on this occasion always go online via the same IP address.
