I've seen a lot of chatter today about Instagram ending support for optional End-to-End Encrypted DMs. I helped to lead on cryptography and privacy for E2EE in Messenger and Instagram for many years, until I left around 10 months ago, so it's disappointing to see it being removed from Instagram.
Jon Millican
@jonmillican.bsky.social
Applied privacy engineer in the UK. Currently at OpenAI. Previously helped to lead end-to-end encryption for Messenger at Meta. he/him
Walrus cows give birth away from their herd. Blubbergasting!
Walruses sometimes appear almost-white when swimming because their surface blood vessels constrict in the cold water. Walrusome!
Walruses use their tusks to form holes in the ice, and to help them climb out of the water. Blubbergasting!
I've seen a lot of chatter today about Instagram ending support for optional End-to-End Encrypted DMs. I helped to lead on cryptography and privacy for E2EE in Messenger and Instagram for many years, until I left around 10 months ago, so it's disappointing to see it being removed from Instagram.
FYI, Labour just made every Apple product in the UK less secure. All so that the state can snoop at leisure on anyone they like. (Apple refused to install a back door to let government snoops in and got rid of enhanced security instead. Like binning a door instead of cutting a skeleton key for it.)
Apple is removing iCloud end-to-encryption features from the UK after government compelled it to add backdoors
it shouldn't be illegal to not have access to your customers' data
We at the Internet Society are deeply disappointed that Apple has had to stop offering end-to-end encryption in the UK. The following can be attributed to Dr. Joseph Lorenzo Hall, Distinguished Technologist at the Internet Society: 1/
Maybe there's something important about end-to-end encryption?! European Parliament is now recommending members use E2EE messaging because of the implications of Salt Typhoon. ht @komadori.bsky.social
European Parliament urges lawmakers to only use encrypted messages after China hacks
13 Feb 2025 - Pro Article - By Max Griera, Ellen O'Regan
pro.politico.eu
"The British government’s undisclosed order, issued last month, requires blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account, and has no known precedent in major democracies."
U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
Secret order requires blanket access to protected cloud backups around the world, which if implemented would undermine Apple’s privacy pledge to its users.
washingtonpost.com
Given that E2EE messaging is coming to Bluesky, now seems a good time to cross-post a thread of mine from Threads, briefly discussing one of the interesting non-obvious tradeoffs that we had to consider around message history.