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“Someone was typing in a URL and WhatsApp was fetching it off my server”

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Re: “Someone was typing in a URL and WhatsApp was fetching it off my server”

#11

Post by benologist »

philippz wrote: post #5

On the one hand it provides a greater user-experience if Whatsapp can figure out the URL and preview information about the posted URL (like any social network does today, even we do it at STOMT when you attach an URL to your feedback). On the other hand i do not get why they send it after every character. Makes it even faster but creates a bunch of unnecessary requests. Not very user friendly. They could do it after…

They're probably trying to prefetch the URLs so they're loaded by the time you want it, just not a nice way of doing it.

Re: “Someone was typing in a URL and WhatsApp was fetching it off my server”

#13

Post by gghhvgx »

ars wrote: post #9
gghhvgx wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh ffs, they're just fetching it to render a preview. Have you ever used WhatsApp? Someone down at HQ is laughing their asses off right now.

Preview sure, but why every character?

Because the preview is displayed as you type, not when you hit Send

Re: “Someone was typing in a URL and WhatsApp was fetching it off my server”

#15

Post by twiss »

This makes me think of another potential privacy risk: if you paste a URL in WhatsApp, or click Android's share button and select WhatsApp, it doesn't add a space after the url. Most users are probably aware that they have to add a space, but if they forget, WhatsApp will probably send the first word of the rest of the message to the server. (Similarly if you paste a URL at the start of an already-written message, but maybe that's even more contrived.)

Re: “Someone was typing in a URL and WhatsApp was fetching it off my server”

#16

Post by JshWright »

gghhvgx wrote: post #13
ars wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preview sure, but why every character?

Because the preview is displayed as you type, not when you hit Send

But still... why every character? Wait a couple hundred ms after each keystroke to see if they are done.

Re: “Someone was typing in a URL and WhatsApp was fetching it off my server”

#17

Post by emilfihlman »

E: Disregard. Whatsapp is doing exactly what they should be doing. Telegram seems to proxy the requests.

Why is no one saying anything about end to end crypto?

Whatsapp shouldn't be able to see my messages, isn't that what they say themselves?

Re: “Someone was typing in a URL and WhatsApp was fetching it off my server”

#18

Post by jwilk »

emilfihlman wrote: post #17

E: Disregard. Whatsapp is doing exactly what they should be doing. Telegram seems to proxy the requests. Why is no one saying anything about end to end crypto? Whatsapp shouldn't be able to see my messages, isn't that what they say themselves?

The 4th comment is:

doing a GET request over the internet is already violating e2e

Re: “Someone was typing in a URL and WhatsApp was fetching it off my server”

#19

Post by tinus_hn »

emilfihlman wrote: post #17

E: Disregard. Whatsapp is doing exactly what they should be doing. Telegram seems to proxy the requests. Why is no one saying anything about end to end crypto? Whatsapp shouldn't be able to see my messages, isn't that what they say themselves?

The app obviously can see the messages, this happens on the clients.
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