For years now, there has been some concern about the coziness between technology companies and the government. Whether a company complies with casual government requests for data, requires a warrant, or even fights overly-broad warrants has been a canary in the digital coal mine during an era where...
I like the EFF, but I’m very suspicious of them claiming any meta apps provide actual encryption. I assume their “encryption “ is simply show.
I for some reason recall at one point WhatsApp’s encryption was actually an audited implementation of Signal’s encryption. But that is so long ago that I doubt that holds much weight now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Even it they (WhatsApp) still provide reliable E2EE, they have lots of metadata that is not encrypted, and that they actively share with their “advertising partners”.
End to end encryption provided by a corporation isn’t for show. Instead of a dump with everybody’s conversations, now a cop has to physically pay a visit and take the phone.
This doesn’t help you when you are targeted, but at the population level this has actual effects of cops having to have to do their jobs.
Many people see it as theatre. I see it as a lot better than just keeping everything in plaintext.