• 2 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • I agree that decrypt/encrypt is bad—it is simply not E2EE. The solution would have to be a better method of public key distribution for ‘federated’ systems.

    While I don’t know anything specific about facebook messenger, E2EE doesn’t necessarily preclude what you suggest. A messaging service could store the entire chat history encrypted without decryption keys. When you get a new client you could restore the entire history in encrypted form onto your device. You would then use a recovery key you would possess to decrypt the message history on your end. At no time would the messaging service have the keys to decrypt. I’m not saying that is what facebook does.



  • If you enable advanced data protection apple cannot recover your account. You need your recovery keys or a designated recovery contact.

    The apple doc implies (to me) that a SIM swap only works after you authenticate on an apple device (e.g. using your password) even without advanced data protection. I have never tested that.

    You can use the long process (many days) to recover an account assuming you haven’t enabled advanced data protection. I’m okay with that as it is perfect for my grandparents (I had an older relative who got their account back through this method).

    I get that you could SIM swap to recover other accounts (not Apple) if they have SMS as a recovery method. That sucks and it really sucks for people who don’t get that an email or SMS recovery can be a giant hole in security.


  • The document you linked says it requires a combination of your apple account password plus an SMS text sent to a pre-registered phone number? Seems like a pretty good setup for most people. Also has the alternative of recovery contacts and recovery keys.

    It looks like turning on advanced protection would eliminate the SMS method but I am not 100% sure. Then you would need recovery keys or recovery contact.

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651

    My biggest worry in these cases is not that I get locked out, but rather that Apple mangles my keychain. I have a USB CSV of my passwords in my bank safety deposit box. With passkey I am not sure of how I would get a similar backup.