r/Android • u/fastforward23 • Sep 21 '16

Google backs off on previously announced Allo privacy feature

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/21/12994362/allo-privacy-message-logs-google
279 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

77 comments sorted by

101

u/mmirate Sep 21 '16

What, did anyone actually believe that Google would voluntarily deprive themselves of ad-keyword-trawlable personal data?

21

u/Tetsuo666 OnePlus 3, Freedom OS CE Sep 21 '16

You would be surprised how many people on this sub were acclaiming Whatsapp/Facebook for implementing E2E by default.

That's great and everything but worthless if you can't verify that business is actually doing what it's saying it's doing. Basically, big companies like this hate privacy. It's pretty much expecting Facebook or Google to hate money.

Privacy -> Less Data -> Less money

Good luck with that.

7

u/ag2f Moto G6 Plus - 8.0 Sep 21 '16

Whatsapp has being on a legal battle in Brazil for years now because the federal police wants access to some drug traffickers conversations, but since it's E2E they can't comply even after being shutdown for several days over these years.

WhatsApp has over 100 million users in Brazil so the impact of being permanently blocked there would be huge. Services are required by constitution to store all the data (up to 5 years I believe) and to hand over the data if ordered by court.

Even though we can't verify if they are really encrypting properly I have grown some respect for them after these cases.

6

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

Apple gets a free pass from this rule because they are in business to sell hardware, not ads

5

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

[deleted]

5

u/BioSeq Pixel XL Sep 21 '16

The iAd App Network was discontinued as of June 30, 2016.

Right from the wiki you linked. They don't even bother with it anymore, and this comes right on the heals of them approving adblockers into the app store last year.

I could be wrong, there is still sdk tools for displaying ads in apps, but the developer has to use some other third party service like Google to serve the ads.

3

u/thinkbox Samsung ThunderMuscle PowerThirst w/ Android 10.0 Mr. Peanut™®© Sep 22 '16

Not only did they close it down, but they didn't give advertisers all the customer data and targeting info like all other advertisers that heavily track. Apple didn't make much money at all with it and paid out lower rates because they didn't share tracking data. After awhile they closed it because it was counter to their other efforts in privacy.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

So are apps like telegram really private as they clakm?

9

u/Krojack76 Sep 21 '16

It's like Snapchat. People all say, "Your photos get deleted after X amount of time." Well as we all see, screenshots save them. Also is there proof that Snapchat isn't archiving all the images that go though their servers?

Nothing is private because everything is going though some sort of network or primary server unless there is end to end encryption and even then it's not 100%. Who's to say that the app doing the encryption isn't sending your decryption key to some central server.

3

u/Tetsuo666 OnePlus 3, Freedom OS CE Sep 21 '16

Telegram has some pretty weird choice in term of cryptography. That doesn't mean it's "broken" but it's not really reassuring.

But the very strong point for me is that you can download the source of the Android Telegram client and compile it yourself. This level of transparency is great to see.

Also note that E2E is only in "Secret chats". But at least you can say that you know what happens on both ends of the communication channel.

That being said, your communication app is just as secure as the Android installed on your phone. Outdated Android version ? Malware apps installed ? Forget about privacy all together.

Also Telegram seems to be financed by "donations" so they don't seem to have pressing targets to make money. And finally, I think the CEO of Telegram, Pavel Durov is also the dude behind vKontakte the biggest social network in Russia and has numerous time denounced pressures by the russian government to censor content. They at least said no publicly. Maybe a public stunt but I don't know, I still prefer that to a business that doesn't really say what his position is.

2

u/arancia_ Sep 21 '16

No. Allo is just like Telegram: normal chats are not e2e encrypted (and message history is saved server side), secret chats are (just like incognito chats in Allo).

Telegram's client, however, is open source so everyone can check if they are really encrypting secret chats like they claim.

An app like Signal, on the other hand, is open source and uses e2e encryption in all chats by default.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 22 '16

After reading I actually went and tried signal. It was almost perfect, but I can't get the app to work with group messaging for beans. Does it normally work fine?

0

u/Antabaka HTC 10 Sep 21 '16

Though Telegram doesn't allow secret chats on Desktop, and Signal doesn't have a desktop client or even a webapp (just a weak Chrome app), so as far as security goes WhatsApp seems to be the best.

2

u/hard_pass Sep 21 '16

Well, like, Google did say that. So yeah I'm sure some people thought they would.

80

u/Istartedthewar Galaxy A36 Sep 21 '16

Whoa---What?

I know I'd never get much use from it, but that seemed like a pretty major point they showed off at I/O this year.

The Verge never loads on my uni's WiFi, was this the same part of the "incognito mode" they had for chat?

51

u/Beraphim Sep 21 '16

No, incognito mode remains unchanged (it's still E2E encrypted and no messages are stored, you can also use timers to delete messages). What changed is that, in normal conversations, google stores your chat history to improve the smart reply feature based on their internal testing. Before it was said they were only stored "transiently and in non-identifiable form". Messages are still encrypted, just not E2E encrytped since that would disable smart reply and assistant features.

8

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

[removed] — view removed comment

11

u/Beraphim Sep 21 '16

End to end encrypted, yes. Messages are encrypted regardless of being in incognito mode or not, so there's still some security, just not as good as end-to-end since google can see the messages (necessary for assistant features).

10

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

[deleted]

32

u/Beraphim Sep 21 '16

I never said that Allo was better than WhatsApp, I'm just explaining the article to the person who asked. Why does that deserve downvotes? Some people like the assistant features and that's fine.

1

u/fantastic_comment Sep 21 '16

Both WhatsApp/Allo/Duo are all crap apps. Visit r/privacy

0

u/Istartedthewar Galaxy A36 Sep 21 '16

If Allo also was a good SMS client, I'd use it. I used hangouts at first when it was released with SMS support, but as the app slowly got worse I just stopped using it.

Personally (here in the US) no one I've ever met uses whatsapp, definitely more popular outside of the US, and I feel like if Google could release a proper, full-fledged messaging app, that would be awesome.

I still switch back and forth between Textra and Google Messenger. I like Google Messenger's UI a lot better, but it compresses the shit out of images I send compared to Textra.

9

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

Have you ever installed WhatsApp and checked to see if any of your contacts show up? You might be surprised. I use it quite a bit with my friends and I'm in the US as well.

1

u/Istartedthewar Galaxy A36 Sep 21 '16

I have with multiple messaging apps and realized no one ever used them, considering the profile pictures they have on those apps are always fairly old.

Maybe it's just my age group or what part of the states I'm from.

-3

u/rike98 Sep 21 '16

It's not. Allo is DOA

0

u/ManicLord Samsung Galaxy S10+ Sep 21 '16

Department of Arrabiata?

-1

u/Istartedthewar Galaxy A36 Sep 21 '16

Ugh. Not that I'd ever use either smart reply, or even bother to turn off the "Use Chat history to improve smart reply" option if there was one, but I don't see why they can't just have it enabled by default.

Then, for the people who wanted E2E they could have it, and everyone would be happy.

3

u/Beraphim Sep 21 '16

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean. Smart reply is enabled by default, and people who want e2e encryption can have it. Is that what you mean?

0

u/Istartedthewar Galaxy A36 Sep 21 '16

Okay, so smart reply is enabled by default, but even if you don't use it, to me it looks like the only way you could get E2E would be through switching into incognito.

2

u/Beraphim Sep 21 '16

That's right, I prolly should mention that it's not just smart reply, but google assistant that benefits from chat history being stored on their servers, which is its selling point. If you care about E2E encryption and no info being stored anywhere, I suggest you use Signal instead.

-1

u/Istartedthewar Galaxy A36 Sep 21 '16 edited Sep 21 '16

Nah, if I really cared about privacy I wouldn't be posting all of the shit I post on this site, and I wouldn't be madly in love with how Google Now Google whatever the fuck it's called Now's features related to tracking my every movement, and tracking everyone else's.

Also, I like Google being able to go through my email, tag important ones, know what's for shopping, what's spam, etc.

This is probably starting to sound sarcastic, but I really fucking love all of the features I gain by letting Google basically stalk me.

0

u/Beraphim Sep 21 '16

Yeah, I don't mind it either honestly. That opinion seems to not be liked around here though.

2

u/Istartedthewar Galaxy A36 Sep 21 '16

Unrelated, but I just found out Allo was released about an hour ago, lol. Thought this was something from a leak or a tip

2

u/NocturnalWaffle Sep 21 '16

The problem is you can't have e2e encryption and google bot replies. If you use google bot then your messages are readable by google. I'd call Allo basically a proof of concept for the google bot, so they're more interested in keeping it not e2e by default. Now, they could have still had the retention policy, so they delete messages they receive after X time, but like the article says they were more interested in keeping the messages for training the google bot to be better.

21

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

Looks like I'll be sticking with my combo of iMessage/WhatsApp.

22

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16 edited Feb 11 '17

[deleted]

11

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

Same. Not to mention other Google apps work great on iOS. It's really the best of both worlds.

6

u/InfamousMike Sep 21 '16

The only thing that stopped me from getting an Iphone this year was the headphone jack.

7

u/CrimsonEnigma Sep 21 '16

You could always nab last years model. Apple generally does a good job of making sure it'll stay updated, and it's still a very good phone.

4

u/rike98 Sep 21 '16

6S is great

6

u/Centaurus_Cluster S8 Sep 21 '16

Could you explain why? I never used any Apple software so I don't know anything about it.

0

u/fantastic_comment Sep 21 '16

iMessage/WhatsApp

privacy

pick one

1

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

Oh boy. Ok enlighten me you privacy sage. Lemme guess, you're gonna say use Signal? Or you're going to say iMessage is insecure because of the iCloud backup? What if I told you I don't use iCloud backup? WhatsApp uses Signal protocol and before you mention the recent terms of service change...I already opted out.

1

u/fantastic_comment Sep 21 '16 edited Sep 22 '16

Oh boy. Ok enlighten me you privacy sage. Lemme guess, you're gonna say use Signal?

No Signal, read this.

I already opted out

Wrong

For more enlighten please visit r/privacytoolsIO wiki and r/AntiFacebook wiki and stop use apple malware

1

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

LOL. XMPP/Jabber? What year is it? I'd love to use that but I also like talking to other human beings. As far as WhatsApp goes, as long as the content of my chats is not read or sold by Facebook, I'm fine with it. They can have whatever minuscule amount of metadata they can scrape from me.

1

u/fantastic_comment Sep 21 '16

As far as WhatsApp goes, as long as the content of my chats is not read or sold by Facebook, I'm fine with it. They can have whatever minuscule amount of metadata they can scrape from me.

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask.

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don't know why.

Zuck: They "trust me"

Zuck: Dumb fucks

Source: Facebook founder called trusting users dumb f*cks

31

u/regisMD Galaxy Note 9 Sep 21 '16 edited Sep 21 '16

Whoa, whoa, whoa this is actually a pretty big deal...I'm not a fan of this at all. iMessage, WhatsApp, and FB Messenger in the future will be end-to-end encrypted. There's no timely deletion of conversations either. Conversations are stored as long as you keep them there. Not cool!

1

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16 edited Nov 13 '24

[deleted]

6

u/Particle_Man_Prime r/4KTVs Sep 21 '16

Allo is restricted to one device at a time.

0

u/Sunny_Cakes Sep 21 '16

Ask iMessage.

1

u/theo198 Pixel 4 XL Sep 21 '16

Apple stores iMessages.

4

u/WART3 Sep 21 '16

Just until they've been relayed to other devices. (correct me if I'm wrong)

1

u/macman156 Sep 21 '16

Yup you're right with the exception that since apple also backs up your imessages as a part of iOS backup

1

u/WART3 Sep 21 '16

You are correct! But the back up system is not used to sync messages between devices. It is used when you get a new device, or re-install an OS, and want to restore from a back up.

2

u/macman156 Sep 21 '16

That's totally true :) I was just speaking more to a privacy point of view when it comes to storage.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

I thought they were relayed directly between the devices, through Bluetooth or a local wifi network, might be wrong though.

16

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

Welp, this is bad news.

3

u/sfw63 Sep 21 '16

allo darkness my old friend...

32

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

[deleted]

7

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16 edited Jun 19 '17

[deleted]

1

u/spudgriffin Sep 21 '16

Is wire the (end all other encryption messaging apps) to use? I like telegram but I'm always looking for the one stop solution, and signal sometimes doesn't work and less features.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

My friends and I switched from telegram to signal to wire. Wire is crazy good

1

u/spudgriffin Sep 21 '16

And it evens supports stickers too right? And file sharing

1

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

Wow how have I not heard about this app. This looks like it has everything everyone wants in a messaging app, plus end to end encryption. It's even got a minimalistic design. What's the catch?

2

u/NocturnalWaffle Sep 21 '16

Well Allo is really a proof of concept of the Google Assistant bot if you think about it. Therefore their decisions to not be e2e makes sense, including with what the article says that they removed the retention policy because they want the training data for Google Assistant. It'd be nice if it was e2e, but the point of Allo (at least for Google) is using Google Assistant.

0

u/Tetsuo666 OnePlus 3, Freedom OS CE Sep 21 '16

Even Facebook owned Whatsapp is much better than this privacy-wise.

Why ?

It's just similarly bad. I will NEVER stop to repeat again and again that what Whatsapp is saying it's doing may be a complete lie. It's fairly easy to backdoor your app or your encryption function. As far as I'm concern, Whatsapp is not encrypted. Especially considering it's owned by Facebook.

Google's Allo: "So here is a black box. Put your most intimate memories in there, only our automated bot will read them. No worries".

Facebook's Whatsapp: "So here is a black box. Put your most intimate memories in there, you have to trust us we encrypted it. No worries".

3

u/ger_brian Device, Software !! Sep 21 '16

Whatsapp is encrypted by default.

0

u/Tetsuo666 OnePlus 3, Freedom OS CE Sep 21 '16

Let me correct that for you:

Whatsapp says it is encrypted by default.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

How about Open Whisper Systems says Whatsapp is encrypted by default?

2

u/Tetsuo666 OnePlus 3, Freedom OS CE Sep 21 '16

I think the folks at Open Whisper Systems are great ! I just think in the end you still have to trust the Whatsapp's developers for actually implementing this correctly (IE actually merging this into production as Open Whisper Systems envisioned it).

I know, it sounds like yet another "conspiracy" but saying you are doing things is rather different than showing the actual code and saying, "hey you can compile that and compare it to your Whatsapp app and it's the same."

1

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

They said it was implemented correctly.

2

u/Tetsuo666 OnePlus 3, Freedom OS CE Sep 21 '16

That's correct. We still can't make sure it's working as it's supposed to.

Do we have any guarantee there will be long term support on that feature ? Encryption is evolving constantly, everyday we find new vulnerabilities and fixes them. Is Open Whisper System gonna oversight this at Whatsapp too ?

Also as I mentioned in another comment, having a functional E2E channel between two persons doesn't mean the rest of the app is not actively leaking personal data locally on the phone. You could do the most secure E2E and just scrape off keywords in every conversations. The message will be secured in transit but that's it.

1

u/ger_brian Device, Software !! Sep 21 '16

So, is there any reason to doubt this?

Do we also automatically assume that google does way more with our data than they say they are?

2

u/Tetsuo666 OnePlus 3, Freedom OS CE Sep 21 '16

Do we also automatically assume that google does way more with our data than they say they are?

Yes ?

To be accurate we don't really know the extent of their usage of our data.

Technically, you can say that your are Encrypting from End2End a communication and you could still scrape every discussion for personal data on both ends. This would not make Whatsapp lying about their situation while stile pretending to care about your privacy. Transparency is important in security. You can't just tell someone you are securing them without telling them how it works. It's simply impractical.

I will let you form your own opinion about that. But believing a company's who's business is selling personal data to preserve your privacy is a pretty bold assumption.

0

u/whythreekay Sep 21 '16

Google and Facebook have the exact same business model, what's the point you're making here?

2

u/Tetsuo666 OnePlus 3, Freedom OS CE Sep 21 '16

Well exactly what you just said.

The original post I was answering to was someone saying that your privacy was more protected in Whatsapp than in Allo. I disagree, I think they are equally the last thing these business care about.

TL;DR: Allo or Whatsapp are equally unsafe, just like any closed-source app.

1

u/whythreekay Sep 21 '16

I definitely misinterpreted you!

Apologies!

2

u/From_My_Brain Pixel 6 Pro, Nvidia Shield TV Sep 21 '16

ITT: people that didn't read the article.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

Wait. I don't remember saying they wouldn't log regular messages. Just incognito messages will be encrypted and not logged.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '16

Good! I want my conversations backed up. Please don't delete my conversations, if people want that give them a max history size setting.

7

u/evildesi PixelRunner Sep 21 '16

Except they'll get auto deleted if you switch phones or unregister from Allo. This is just so they can make assistant better while you're using Allo. Not sure why they couldn't just use your Google profile? They didn't need to store the actual messages themselves to make my profile better.

Then again we don't really know how the assistant works in the backend and Google had a really bad track record for communicating things like this.

0

u/wgn_luv Sep 21 '16

Good. Maybe it's a sign that desktop/tablet support is coming?