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As if they couldn't read everything anyway. Obviously, I have no evidence for making such a claim. What I know is 1. Facebook's reputation with regards to privacy. 2. The fact that they paid 20 billion dollars to buy a product without a monetization model. (Which is 20 times more than they paid for Instagram by the way.) 3. Whatsapp's founder left the company after the acquisition due to privacy concerns. It's enough…
> WhatsApp can now read your recent messages when you report a user This feature is just an extension of manually making a screenshot and attaching it to the messages. As much as I like E2EE, I don't see where the problem lies? It's you who opts in into getting a third party involved. E2EE doesn't mean that no third party is ever going to see the content, it only means that nobody sees it by default .
> WhatsApp can now read your recent messages when you report a user This feature is just an extension of manually making a screenshot and attaching it to the messages. As much as I like E2EE, I don't see where the problem lies? It's you who opts in into getting a third party involved. E2EE doesn't mean that no third party is ever going to see the content, it only means that nobody sees it by default .
Does it mean messages can be read without agreement? Let's imagine "a glitch" where operator sees that user has opt in, but they didn't - can they see messages?
1. What is 'recent' messages? That's a big grey area there. They should specify or it's ripe for abuse.
2. If someone suddenly gets 10 reports of abuse then that's a red flag. I would argue that this would require further investigation and by investigation I mean forcing a disclosure such as 1-1 messages.
Just FYI, the Google Drive backup of your "E2E encrypted" whatsapp messages is stored in plain text... https://faq.whatsapp.com/android/chats/about-google-drive-ba...
So it is not only Facebook that has complete access to the message history, but also Google. The funny thing is that I cannot find a way to access that backup myself, is anyone aware of a method to download that backup as a data dump and inspect it?
The moment Google and Facebook announced this partnership together I knew it was bad news and I should stay the hell away from doing such backups. But apparently many people cheered for it without realizing the implications.
Just FYI, the Google Drive backup of your "E2E encrypted" whatsapp messages is stored in plain text... https://faq.whatsapp.com/android/chats/about-google-drive-ba...
> WhatsApp can now read your recent messages when you report a user This feature is just an extension of manually making a screenshot and attaching it to the messages. As much as I like E2EE, I don't see where the problem lies? It's you who opts in into getting a third party involved. E2EE doesn't mean that no third party is ever going to see the content, it only means that nobody sees it by default .
It's a step along a continuum where the end-to-end encrypted messenger wasn't uploading plaintext before, and now it is.
Apple's similar previously end-to-end encrypted iMessage went through a similar evolution: now iOS uploads the complete iMessage plaintext history to Apple (with Apple keys) via iCloud Backup.
We now know that Facebook deems it okay to exfiltrate plaintext, post-decryption, from the device in certain circumstances. This means we need to be cognizant and vigilant around the precise nature and boundaries of those circumstances, because "plaintext doesn't leave the device and get transmitted to Facebook" is no longer true.
A tap or two by one of the people you're talking to could upload your decrypted plaintext directly to the person-in-the-middle; this is a relatively significant footgun that we should remain aware of.
I hate Facebook and WhatsApp as much as anyone else who cares about privacy. But there's nothing wrong in this particular change. It happens when you report someone as spam, and you get a clear notification about what's going on. There's a "cancel" button as big as the "report" button, so you can bail out if you disagree.
Well first of all, WhatsApp is officially going back on the E2EE guarantees of people's communications being read only by the sender and recipient. There was actually another instance of them doing something like this "when you would switch your SIM card" - TheGuardian called it a backdoor, which it was, but most people online dismissed that.
In the end what it means is that Facebook is continuing to find excuses for looking into your "E2EE data". First it's switching SIM cards, then it's reporting abuse, then it's.....law enforcement needing access for X....and then they might as well scrap the entire idea, because the "exception" to reading E2EE data becomes the rule.