Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#121

Post by nicoburns » Mon, May 18, 2020, 11:44 AM UTC

p49k wrote: post #85

thaumasiotes wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were if you're willing to overlook the requirement -- which WhatsApp shares -- for the other person to use the same app. (Well, protocol. Gaim handled AIM and MSN fine.) The only thing SMS offered was that the other person didn't need to be running anything. WhatsApp didn't offer that, and also didn't improve on the other messengers of the day.

You’re missing the fact that WhatsApp was actually available for essentially all phones (even in 3rd world markets) and that nothing else is needed. AIM and MSN required an email address which means you need one, as well as an email client on your phone, not something that all people want or have. The signup process wasn’t even always available within the device, you might need access to a desktop to complete signup.…

> You’re missing the fact that WhatsApp was actually available for essentially all phones

And it still is. Even cheap feature phones often have WhatsApp support.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#122

Post by urxvtcd » Mon, May 18, 2020, 11:47 AM UTC

0x006A wrote: post #108

urxvtcd wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> forcing you to create PIN nobody asked for You do realize that user profiles is one of the most requested features, right?

Nobody asked for spaced repetition nagging, and no way to turn it off. its so condescending and stupid of them. If you don't give users a choice, the only choice left to them is to stop using your app.

Yeah, maybe they could leave an option to disable this. But it takes like 30 seconds to input your pin if it's really long, and that's every few days. I for one think it's a neat solution of "now give us an 8-digit pin you've set up a year ago" problem.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#123

Post by GekkePrutser » Mon, May 18, 2020, 11:47 AM UTC

FrojoS wrote: post #95

b0tch7 wrote: post #86

I'm an Android lifer (all my smartphones) and now live in Australia. I use Whatsapp for 99% of my personal messaging and frankly, I love it. Same messaging experience for everyone (including emojis), great desktop app, easy backup & restore as you switch phones, was early on the reply-swipe functionality, easy forwarding, voice messages, . No, none of these are "killer" features, but it's honestly one of the purest e…

Add to that great voice and video calls.

Skype is still way better for those. I use both regularly, WhatsApp has choppy video and phone-like audio whereas Skype has smooth video and HQ audio. I only use WA with contacts that don't have skype.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#124

Post by Galaxeblaffer » Mon, May 18, 2020, 11:48 AM UTC

b0tch7 wrote: post #86

I'm an Android lifer (all my smartphones) and now live in Australia. I use Whatsapp for 99% of my personal messaging and frankly, I love it. Same messaging experience for everyone (including emojis), great desktop app, easy backup & restore as you switch phones, was early on the reply-swipe functionality, easy forwarding, voice messages, . No, none of these are "killer" features, but it's honestly one of the purest e…

What about metadata ?

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#125

Post by vinay427 » Mon, May 18, 2020, 11:51 AM UTC

madballster wrote: post #120

b0tch7 wrote: post #86

I'm an Android lifer (all my smartphones) and now live in Australia. I use Whatsapp for 99% of my personal messaging and frankly, I love it. Same messaging experience for everyone (including emojis), great desktop app, easy backup & restore as you switch phones, was early on the reply-swipe functionality, easy forwarding, voice messages, . No, none of these are "killer" features, but it's honestly one of the purest e…

I really dislike the Whatapp desktop experience, specifically the fact it's still going through Bluetooth using the phone even though I am on my desktop. Sometimes I leave my phone on another level in the house (yes I don't carry it around 24/7) and then Whatsapp desktop simply won't work as the distance is too great. I prefer desktop apps that are 'standalone' such as Telegram's or Skype's.

It doesn't actually use Bluetooth. When you scan the QR code your browser pairs with your phone and messages are relayed back through WhatsApp servers between the two, so as long as both have an internet connection it should work regardless of where they are.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#126

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Mon, May 18, 2020, 11:53 AM UTC

Hokusai wrote: post #58

This is part of a broader problem. Many "apps" from WhatsApp to Zoom are treated as public spaces by citizens. But, legally the app-space is closer to a private space. This creates a mismatch between reality and expectations. (Zuckerberg can delete his chat history and you could not until Europe passed legislation forcing Facebook to do so.) I suffered the "Windows only" of gubernamental applications that excluded Li…

>The USA is in a position to shutdown all the technological infrastructure of Europe (AWS, Google, Facebook, Azure, ...) and to openly spy its citizens

OK, and what can we do about that?

We build our own successful cars, we build our own successful planes but it seems like when it comes to building highly scalable world dominating software we are powerless even though our universities churn out tons of talented CS engineers and researchers.

What does the US do right that we do wrong here? Besides paying our devs worse.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#127

Post by goalieca » Mon, May 18, 2020, 11:53 AM UTC

b0tch7 wrote: post #86

I'm an Android lifer (all my smartphones) and now live in Australia. I use Whatsapp for 99% of my personal messaging and frankly, I love it. Same messaging experience for everyone (including emojis), great desktop app, easy backup & restore as you switch phones, was early on the reply-swipe functionality, easy forwarding, voice messages, . No, none of these are "killer" features, but it's honestly one of the purest e…

> Afaict, all my messages are still E2E encrypted, and all my stuff is saved to my Google Drive.

There’s two things here: who controls the endpoints and who controls the key exchange. For now, I’m less concerned with reading your texts on the end than anything else any other Facebook app does to ping back and track you. The key management to me seems to be less than paranoid.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#128

Post by m_mueller » Mon, May 18, 2020, 11:54 AM UTC

vinay427 wrote: post #125

madballster wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really dislike the Whatapp desktop experience, specifically the fact it's still going through Bluetooth using the phone even though I am on my desktop. Sometimes I leave my phone on another level in the house (yes I don't carry it around 24/7) and then Whatsapp desktop simply won't work as the distance is too great. I prefer desktop apps that are 'standalone' such as Telegram's or Skype's.

It doesn't actually use Bluetooth. When you scan the QR code your browser pairs with your phone and messages are relayed back through WhatsApp servers between the two, so as long as both have an internet connection it should work regardless of where they are.

gotta repair every day though, from what I remember

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#129

Post by flohofwoe » Mon, May 18, 2020, 11:56 AM UTC

vetinari wrote: post #101

flohofwoe wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you chat with people on iOS with this? Or with people who didn't have a Google account, or didn't want to setup yet another account at all? Being a free and hassle-free drop-in replacement for SMS was the main appeal of WhatsApp at the time. If there would have been alternatives with the same features, WhatsApp would never have become popular in the first place.

Everyone (in Joel Spolsky meaning of everyone) already had an gmail account. Not giving out phone number was a feature. When Whatsapp started out, it was free only for the first year; after that, they wanted a payment. What this experiment has shown, that people did very short term decision without regards for long term.

That's probably because you lived in a tech bubble already 10 years ago.

I reluctantly installed WhatsApp only after everybody around me started using it, or (the more tech savvy among them who already knew how to "open the internet"), switched away from Facebook to WhatsApp.

Everybody who had a phone also naturally had a phone number, and the phone numbers of their friends were already stored on the phone. Nobody outside the "nerd sphere" had a Gmail account 10 years ago, especially not outside the US.

PS: I don't remember ever paying money to WhatsApp, I think that was a short-lived experiment that didn't work out right before the Facebook acquisition.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#130

Post by m_mueller » Mon, May 18, 2020, 11:56 AM UTC

lucideer wrote: post #106

dijit wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FD: I'm an iPhone user. (not a die-hard, but I haven't found a decent android I can get along with permanently). Aside from the number of people (network effects) on WhatsApp, what does it have over something like telegram, signal or any of the other cross-platform messengers? Devils advocate for a moment: Signal is pretty consistent, for a "no frills" chat solution, the UX is worse but it is still consistent across…

> Aside from the number of people (network effects) Network effects is it. > if the answer is: "but network effects", why not Facebook messenger? This is a good point, and I'm not really sure, but some guesses: - Branding. During it's initial growth WhatsApp was a FB alternative and FB was in decline. Even after acquisition, awareness of the ownership wasn't immediately widespread. - Contextual app differentiation. F…

phone number pairing is not just about familiarity - a person's phone number is still a natural contact handle to put on a signature, business card etc. Being able to then WhatsApp this person is very powerful.