Apple’s iMessage is causing problems for some American authorities, as interceptions are currently impossible.
Add us to your preferred sources.
Where does the line between protecting personal privacy and ensuring citizen safety lie?
It is on this treacherous ground that we tread when discussing Apple‘s iMessage these days, according to a document from agents of the DEA, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.
The CNET blog has indeed published a text, evidently confidential but leaked online, which reveals that it would not be possible to intercept conversations exchanged via iMessage between two or more iPhone users and the instant messaging system.
The document states that, despite the call records requested and obtained from the telecommunications company Verizon Wireless, it was not possible to access all messages exchanged because the intercepted subjects were precisely using iMessage.
The anti-drug team involved in the investigations, therefore, could not access some information, for which it would have been more feasible to carry out a hacker action rather than a normal request for access to telephone records.
What is certain is that Apple‘s iMessage system was not created with the aim of making communications encrypted but simply to offer a tool for free messages. However, today the only entity capable of making messages available upon investigators’ requests would be Apple itself.
Rather than providing the conversations themselves, it should be possible to automatically intercept them by changing the encryption system used by Apple.
The issue is entirely open for debate and makes it clear that there are now new entities – beyond telecommunications companies – to refer to in order to complete the puzzle of online sociality and communications: not only Apple or similar companies but also social networks and app developers.
Be the first to comment