iMessage in 2024: Inside Apple's Advanced Encryption Upgrade for Ultimate Privacy

Let's move on to something

Let's talk about something more interesting. Digital encryption. Well, I think what is more interesting about this story is not how it works necessarily

but the fact that, you know, with messaging apps, you want them to be as secure as possible

And, you know, I don't know about you guys, but I send a lot of sensitive stuff in my messaging app

I use it to send myself passwords, which probably isn't the best idea

So I'll text myself passwords and stuff that I don't want other people to access

And then sometimes I think like, wait a second. Could someone access this stuff

And I guess, I don't know, what do you think, Griffin? Is this as big of a leap forward as Apple says it is

Like they're making all these improvements to iMessage that they say are going to be rolling out soon

Yeah, this is more of a long-term bet that they're making. So the headline is Apple fortifies IMessage to foil hackers of the future

An IMessage upgrade with post-quantum cryptography will make Apple's instant messaging platform

ready to fend off future hackers. Today's encryption methods likely won't be able to stand up, which is why Apple is bringing the cutting edge protocol

The new tech will launch in March, making iMessage the most secure, widely used messaging service in the world, according to Apple

So backing up a bit, like modern encryption algorithms are all based around the fact that when you multiply two very big prime numbers, like hundreds of digits long

it's mathematically very hard to go backwards and figure out what the factors were, like, you know, what the two numbers were that you used to generate the new number

And that's a pretty big simplification of how encryption works. But the point is, like, it works really great

Like, once consumer-level computers became fast enough to run RSA encryption algorithms

that's the name of the standard, like 20 years ago, securing data has basically been a solved problem on the Internet

But quantum computers can undo RSA encryption like basically instantly like trivially easily Now to be clear there are very few quantum computers in the world

They're basically starting over again with like giant mainframe sized machines and research centers

You know, those like 12 of them total. But on the other hand, quantum computers can break everything on the internet

Like it'll be, it's basically a reversion to how it was in the 90s when everything was just plain text sent, like

completely for anybody to listen into with a man in the middle attack. You know, all of your passwords, everything that you transfer, everything

So Apple has adopted a system called PQ3. PQC is a common abbreviation for post-quantum computing cryptography

This is apparently the third standard iteration of it, which will, quote

introduce post-quantum cryptography from the start of a conversation so that all communication is protected from current and future adversaries

quote, with the ability to rapidly and automatically restore the cryptographic security of a conversation

even if a given key becomes compromised. And Apple says that apparently they're the first major

messaging platform to adopt this new system. I actually hadn't heard of this before. I was in

me either. I wasn't sure that there were any known solutions to post quantum computer

cryptography, but apparently there are a few different standards, a few different ideas that

you know, researchers are tossing around. So this could be the new way that everything on the internet

is secured in the future from now. God, it reminds me in my favorite movie

Have you guys ever seen sneakers? No. No. It's like the third or fourth movie that you've been dropped

on this very phone call. I know, I'm just getting started. I'm just getting warmed up

My goal is 15. So we got like 45 minutes left. Sneakers is about this group of like ex who get together to help companies secure their security systems And they discover this device that essentially lets you hack into any system that exists using

cryptography. And there's like all this like math-based stuff that they talk about

They don't dive too deep in it because it, you know, has to stay interesting to people. One of my favorite movies of all time, Sydney Pointeier

Robert Redford, River Phoenix. It's got a really great cast. And if you never checked it out

I urge you to go. And you find this conversation, at least mildly entertaining

That's a great movie. And it's all about, like, cryptography and, like, breaking source codes and stuff

to, like, hack into people's computer systems and how being able to do that

would affect the world and change the way we organize all of our systems and how governments work and everything

It just reminded me of that. That's neither here nor there. Anything else about that story

That's pretty much it. IMessage is going to be future-proofed for security. So it'll continue to be the best way to text yourself a password

Well, an interesting note is that if you use iMessage backups to iCloud

that is not yet secured using the system. It's only the iMessage chats

So if you're scared about IBM hacking your iMessage to read your texts

then I guess don't back up your iMessages to iCloud well you know what what else was interesting about this story is

that there are apparently hackers who are gathering encrypted data right now

and they're unable to access it but they're hoping that with the development of quantum computers

and the prevalence of quantum computers in the future that at some point they'll just be

you know hoarding all this encrypted data and at some point in the future they actually be able to crack the code and actually read all this data which is one of the reasons I think Apple is taking action on it now to make their data future proof

It's called like Harvest Now decrypt later. And they're saying that that's one of their motivations

for adding this to IMSET now. Yeah. I don't know, man. Messaging apps, you never really know

quite how secure they are. Like I would say I trust Apple probably more than anyone else

I know signals another one that people trust that I also use

but I've also heard it's not full proof. Telegram is one that is also supposed to be pretty secure

but I've heard you could like, if you cracked the security on their servers

they could steal your encryption keys and then unlock all your messages that are available on their servers

And then I heard another one that was actually still pretty secure

although I'm dubious about that, is WhatsApp, because now it's owned by meta

and I'm like, is it actually secure? Or is it meta like reading all your information

I don't think that they are. But I also know that that's kind of how meta makes their money is by

it's just like Google, right? Like reading all your information and selling your products and stuff

So I'm like, I've always kind of stayed away from WhatsApp for that reason. But do you guys use any messaging apps outside of my message or is that just your primary one

That's pretty much it. Aside from Slack for the cult of Mac business chance

Yeah. Slack, yeah. And WhatsApp when you're in Europe. Oh, you do use WhatsApp

Okay. Yeah, everybody does over there. It's crazy. Yeah, I've never really gotten into it

But I do really love Telegram, though. Telegram is just so easy to use

And it's cross-platform. They have a client for everything. You log into your account and poof

All your messages are just pop right up. They got a ton of great sticker integration and, like, emojis and stuff

It's just so much more pleasant to use than, I message in my opinion