Risky Business Podcast
January 18, 2017
Risky Business #439 -- Does WhatsApp have an NSA backdoor? Well, nope.
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On this week’s show we’re chatting with Alec Muffett about an absolutely awful bit of journalism run by The Guardian. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock the last few days you would have seen a story circulating about a supposed government-friendly backdoor in the popular messaging app WhatsApp. Alec joins us this week to explain why that story is, put simply, bullshit.
This week’s show is brought to you by Senetas, makers of layer 2 encryption gear. Senetas co-founder and CTO Julian Fay is along for the sponsor interview and we’re talking to him about what the charge to the cloud means for things like network encryption. Julian listened to last week’s interview with Rich Mogull, and he has some thoughts he’d like to share.
Also this week, a new segment that I hope will become regular – story corner, with Jake Davis. Do stick around for that at the closing of this week’s show.
Adam Boileau, as usual, joins us for this week’s news segment.
Links to everything are in this week’s show notes.
Oh, and do add Patrick and Adam on Twitter if that’s your thing.
Show notes
Obama Pardons James Cartwright for Lying to FBI - The Daily Beast
Chelsea Manning to Be Released Early as Obama Commutes Sentence - The New York Times
Race to succeed Correa opens in Ecuador
After Cellebrite Breach, Hacking Team Lashes Out Against ‘Vigilante Hackers’ | Motherboard
Hacker Steals 900 GB of Cellebrite Data | Motherboard
Cellebrite Sold Phone Hacking Tech to Repressive Regimes, Data Suggests | Motherboard
NSA Exploit Peddlers The Shadow Brokers Call It Quits | Motherboard
Alleged Russian Hacker ‘Guccifer 2.0’ Is Back After Months Of Silence | Motherboard
Trump picks hackable Rudy Giuliani as cybersecurity advisor – Naked Security
NSA Loosens Its Privacy Rules Ahead of Trump Taking Office | WIRED
FBI Confirms That Russia Hacked Older GOP Emails | WIRED
Google reveals its servers all contain custom security silicon • The Register
Adobe angers Chrome users by bundling browser plugin with security update | Ars Technica
Hackers trigger yet another power outage in Ukraine | Ars Technica
Student Hacker Faces 10 Years in Prison For Spyware That Hit 16,000 Computers | Motherboard
Hack Exposes Reams of Private Jabber Chats | Motherboard
Reported “backdoor” in WhatsApp is in fact a feature, defenders say | Ars Technica
Ъ-Новости - Эдварду Сноудену продлили вид на жительство в России
WhatsApp vulnerability allows snooping on encrypted messages | Technology | The Guardian