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Thank you, WhatsApp! Oppressive governments, especially ones that have lots of resources to torment their citizens, should not get to play with our toys.
In the PRC, censorship is an inextricable part of the deal.
WhatApp does the same for UAE numbers. If I initiate a call to my sister who lives in UAE I get an error saying that "Whatsapp calling is unavailable in the UAE" or something along those lines. We worked around it by installing Signal, but she needs a VPN to be able to access it since it's completely blocked in the UAE (as well as Oman). We get around this by texting each other before hand on whatsapp with the keywor…
They're simply providing a better user experience. The Saudis blocked encrypted calls, and users would have wait staring at frustrating repeated timeouts and long 'connecting' hangs. Therefore Whatsapp simply said OK, let's just improve the users experience by giving them an immediate error informing them.
The gist explicitly claims that's not possible. Specifically, it claims that there's no way for the Saudi teleco to distinguish encrypted phone calls from encrypted messages, and since you can send encrypted messages to Saudi users, there's no technical reason why you can't also call them. The implication is that if WhatsApp did allow the calls, the Saudi telecos might block both calls and messages (since they can't…
All you need to do is profile for relatively constant data transfer rates over the course of many minutes that exceed a very low minimum.
If Whatsapp uses a media proxy for calls then you could just trigger on connections made to these servers where these data transfers in question occur.
But even if they don't use a media proxy they'll the clients will connect to specific IP's for call signalling and that's when you'll also know that a call was attempted.
I'm neither defending Saudi Arabia nor Whatsapp, just wanted to let you know that there are very simple ways to detect calls. I'm sure that there are even better, much more advanced techniques that are currently in use by both oppressive (and likely our) governments.
They're simply providing a better user experience. The Saudis blocked encrypted calls, and users would have wait staring at frustrating repeated timeouts and long 'connecting' hangs. Therefore Whatsapp simply said OK, let's just improve the users experience by giving them an immediate error informing them.
Write a bunch of different protocols and switch randomly - or use steganography - use machine learning to evade the block - buy a bunch of existing apps and hide the data in their protocols - put up a fake weak encryption, detect "dissident" talk, and in that case generate a long nonsense recording for the censors from the voices of the speakers, hiding the true message steganographically :-) - or basically anything they can come up with.
Or - Saudi Arabia is not such a big market - make a complete theatric fuss about it and complain about human rights and so on, close all FB and WhatsApp connections and burn all bridges, and milk it for publicity.
(Only being half serious here :-) but I would be really tempted to do something mischievous in their case rather than comply.)
WhatApp does the same for UAE numbers. If I initiate a call to my sister who lives in UAE I get an error saying that "Whatsapp calling is unavailable in the UAE" or something along those lines. We worked around it by installing Signal, but she needs a VPN to be able to access it since it's completely blocked in the UAE (as well as Oman). We get around this by texting each other before hand on whatsapp with the keywor…
Do you have screenshots of this error? If so, do you mind emailing me? lorenzo@motherboard.tv (I'm a reporter at VICE Motherboard, btw)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
WhatsApp calls are made to a different port; I worked at a teleco in Oman and that's how they blocked the calling feature while keeping messaging alive.
To localize this behavior to the US as an example, Verizon wireless is known to block SIP traffic coming and going out of port 5060; it's entirely possible the Saudis are engaging this very similarly and have effectively blocked traffic, encrypted or not coming and going to a specific protocol port. So I don't think saying "there's no way to tell" is entirely accurate
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The gist explicitly claims that's not possible. Specifically, it claims that there's no way for the Saudi teleco to distinguish encrypted phone calls from encrypted messages, and since you can send encrypted messages to Saudi users, there's no technical reason why you can't also call them. The implication is that if WhatsApp did allow the calls, the Saudi telecos might block both calls and messages (since they can't…
Bandwidth is going to be a major tell even if you have zero clue about content.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The gist explicitly claims that's not possible. Specifically, it claims that there's no way for the Saudi teleco to distinguish encrypted phone calls from encrypted messages, and since you can send encrypted messages to Saudi users, there's no technical reason why you can't also call them. The implication is that if WhatsApp did allow the calls, the Saudi telecos might block both calls and messages (since they can't…
WhatsApp calls are made to a different port; I worked at a teleco in Oman and that's how they blocked the calling feature while keeping messaging alive.
Ironic that Saudi is chairing there world's human rights office and denying an essential human right - right to private communication
