TFA makes some rather basic errors.

First,

> Prior to 2011, most cloud-connected devices simply uploaded their data in plaintext.

> Around 2011 our approach to data storage began to evolve. […] began to roll out default end-to-end encryption […] This technology changed the way that keys are managed, to ensure that servers would never see the plaintext content of your messages.

"changed the way that keys are managed" is at a confused contradiction with "uploaded their data in plaintext". If you're going from TLS → E2EE, then yeah, "changed the way keys are managed" miiight make sense, though that's not how I'd phrase it. Then later,

> On the one hand they can (1) send plaintext off to a server, in the process resurrecting many of the earlier vulnerabilities that end-to-end encryption sought to close. Or else (2) they can limit their processing to whatever can be performed on the device itself.

We're still confusing "transmit plaintext" with plaintext being available to the server; the clear option of "use TLS" is omitted. It doesn't really undermine the argument — the server would still have access to the data, and could thus maliciously train AI on it — but it is surprising for a "cryptographer".

> For example, imagine that Apple keeps its promise to deliver messages securely, but then your (Apple) phone goes ahead and uploads (the plaintext) message content to a different set of servers where Apple really can decrypt it. Apple is absolutely using end-to-end encryption in the dullest technical sense… yet is the statement above really accurate? Is Apple keeping its broader promise that it “can’t decrypt the data”?

No, no reasonable person would believe that (though I am sure that if the scenario ever came to be, Apple, or whoever, would likely argue "yes") since it would utterly scuttle the term "E2EE". If you say "Our product supports X", and then have to caveat away 100% of what makes X X, then it's just grift, plain and simple. (Now, whether grift sees regulatory action … well.)

> Now imagine that some other member of the group — not you, but one of your idiot friends — decides to turn on some service that uploads (your) received plaintext messages to WhatsApp.

> In general, what we’re asking here is a question about informed consent.

I would sort of agree, but corporations will expose the consent here to the "friend", and then argue that because the friend consented to your data being uploaded, it is fine. An argument for privacy regulations.

(I don't think you have to go through all this … work. Just upload the user's data. They'll complain, for a bit, but the market has already consolidated into at least an ologopoly, users have shown that, for the most part, they're going to keep using the product rather than leave, or else I'll be ending this comment with a free "2025 will be the Year of the Linux Desktop". What's gonna happen, regulation to ensure a free market remains free¹? Please. Cf. MS Recall, currently in the "complain" phase, but give it time, and we'll reach the "we heard your concerns, and we value your input and take your feedback with the utmost respect ram it down their throats" stage.)

(¹free as in "dictated by the laws of supply & demand", not laissez-faire which is where the US will be headed for the next 4.)

(and … 2011? I'd've said 2013 is when we found out the 4A meant way less than we thought it did, leading to the rise in massive adoption of TLS. Less so E2EE.)