Let me start by saying that i do not have any knowledge of cryptology. My question regarding images etc in whatsapp arose because a developer friend said that its the messages which are encrypted. Images, video files which get saved in a whatsapp folder, can be seen by opening the local device folder anytime without going through whatsapp, can be forwarded to any contact not on whatsapp cannot be encrypted in the same sense as chats are.
Another point he said was that as whatsapp keeps images, video files for few days for meeting some 'legal requirements', if these were encrypted, irrespective of legal requirements, whatsapp would not be able to see those images and video. So keeping these images for sometime wouldnot help whatsapp in meeting those legal requirements.
May i request the brainy community here to enlighten me on
- If images, videos, audios, docs shared through whatsapp and which get saved in local folder on device can be considered end to end encrypted?
- What does the technical document shared on whatsapp website from signal whisper systems mean when it talks about end to end encryption of all attachments?
Insight would be helpful in devising an App where end to end encryption is needed.
CLARIFICATION
I think i could not put my question properly. Let me clarify.
I am not talking about MIM attach atall. I am aware of chats being E2EE. Thus you will not be able to locate chats in your device folder. And you will not be able to share chats to 3rd person outside whatsapp directly from folder. But images/videos in whatsapp get saved in a device whatsapp folder. And you can send those images/videos directly to 3rd person outside whatsapp directly from your folder. If images too were E2EE, these couldnt not be shared, just the way chats cant be shared from any folder.
Whatsapp saves images/video for sometime. What use is saving these if these are encrypted? Even if there were legal requirements, whatsapp cant decrypt them, if these were E2EE! So can E2EE attachments be saved outside the whatsapp in some local device folder and shared outside whatsapp directly?
Could i clarify myself?
Am new to stackoverflow. Pardon a few transgressions.
I haven't seen WhatsApp source code so cannot say for sure, but if they use E2EE the way it's supposed to be used, that would mean the data secrecy is protected while in transit. However, it is not encrypted before sending and decrypted after transmission. Otherwise the receipient wouldn't be able to open an image etc. Moreover, if you save received images/videos to photos outside of WhatsApp, this is where WhatsApp encryption has nothing to do with them any more.