Law Enforcement's Nemesis -- WhatsApp -- Is Also Law Enforcement's Best Friend

WhatsApp: a tool for evil.

David Cameron announced early last year that it was "unacceptable" that all communications could not be intercepted and read by intelligence services and law enforcement agencies. He stopped short of calling for a ban but strongly hinted this would be addressed in the Snooper's Charter.

This followed the head of the UK's GCHQ throwing both terrorism and child porn into the mix while vocally handwringing about encrypted communications -- portraying tech companies as callous accomplices of child abusers and jihadists.

In Brazil, WhatsApp was blocked and a Facebook executive arrested for refusing to hand over identifying information on its users.

And here in the US, the FBI has been dropping sealed hints that the popular messaging app may be the next recipient of one of its infamous All Writs orders.

Meanwhile, over in Belgium, it's law enforcement that's benefitted the most from the platform's existence. (h/t Frederic Jacobs)

"There were no orders and nobody really knew what to do. The mobile phone network was also out of order. Fortunately, Whatsapp worked. Without this app we we could not communicate at all," federal police spokesman Peter De Waele said as quoted by the media outlet.

Very handy, that. When cell infrastructure goes down, WhatsApp stays up. What law enforcement hates and fears because it can't capture readable content in transit is also useful when all hell breaks loose. Kill it off because you fear the unseen communications and you're going to end up hurting yourself.

As for Belgian law enforcement, they're likely not as fearful of WhatsApp's encryption as others. WhatsApp played a key part in a terrorist plot last summer -- but one that was disrupted by Belgian law enforcement.

According to Gaspard Sebag from Bloomberg, the European law enforcement in a joint effort with the FBI are monitoring the use of the popular messaging platform WhatsApp.

"Investigators said earlier they had detained 16 people in the anti-terror raids after working with U.S. authorities to monitor suspects' communications on WhatsApp Inc.'s messaging service." states Sebag.

The Belgian law enforcement raided two separate groups operating in Ostend and Louvain, and according various sources the messages exchanged on WhatsApp allowed the investigators to trace the group.

At the time I'm writing, Facebook who acquired WhatsApp, declined to comment the events, but security experts speculate that there is something wrong in the implementation of WhatsApp end-to-end (E2E) encryption started in November.

And even if the flaw is no longer present, intelligence/law enforcement agencies still have other options:

It seems that even if the messages are protected by the encryption implemented, the FBI or NSA are able to gather metadata on the server side that could be used to link WhatsApp users. The analysis of metadata allowed law enforcement to identify the network of the alleged suspects.

Not quite the monster Cameron, et al. have portrayed it as. And it's a great backup plan for those times when regular communication channels just aren't working.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story