Let me edit in one more relevant info:
I don’t use it, but my contacts may or may not use it.
For those who don’t know, Beeper is an app that aims to unite all your messaging apps into one. To do this, it makes use of Matrix, bridging all those services together. So far, so cool.
However, since different services often use different encryption protocols, messages between those services and Matrix have to be decrypted on Beepers’ servers, before being re-encrypted with the protocol of the recipient.
They are completely open and transparent about this (which I can very much respect), and state that chats on their servers are encrypted, so they can’t read them.
Still though, decrypting mid-transit kinda throws the whole end-to-end part out of the window.
Some might say that everyone needs to decide for themselves if that’s a problem. But the issue with that is that if you decide to use Beeper, you also decide that every person you chat with is okay with it. Not very cool in my book.
That’s where the question asking for independant audits comes in, because I certainly don’t have the expertise to look at their code. If everything is safe from attackers, then cool.
But me for example, I switched to Signal specifically for verifiable and proper End-to-End Encryption, so chatting with someone who uses Signal through Beeper kinda defeats the point.
Because, how does Beeper even get what they need to decrypt a message I send to a Beeper user?
I don’t consent to a third party decrypting my messages, simply because one of my contacts uses their service. That is fundamentally wrong in my opinion.
What are your thoughts on this?
That goes hand in hand with a level of trust with some companies/people and everyone has different threat tolerances. It also highlights the mindset that you have no idea what the person on the other end of the message is doing with it. End to end encryption helps keep in line eavesdropping down but if the recipient of the message has a compromised device or are screenshoting everything and posting it on facebook it’s out of your control.
Which is exactly why I’m raising concerns over it. The fact that this can just happen should not be as normal as it is.
A slightly different example would be WhatsApp having my name and phone number even though I don’t use it, but simply because someone else has me saved in their contacts.
Stuff like this is a problem, and I want to make more people aware of that, give them a better understanding of what can and does happen to their data.