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WhatsApp to move ahead with privacy update despite backlash

reuters.com

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Re: WhatsApp to move ahead with privacy update despite backlash

#81

Post by BoorishBears »

Symbiote wrote: post #56
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People aren’t going to pay for simple services like WhatsApp in 2021. It’s as simple as that. Tech people with a high degree of suspicion and high disposable income are the exception. Even within that group, most people won’t put their money where their mouth is when given the option.

How much money is it? I remember WhatsApp being £1/year, or something like that.

Lol people didn't even want to pay that much, it wouldn't ask for that dollar/pound until you'd used it for a year, and most people would ignore the message when it came up

Usually it'd just keep working anyways

Re: WhatsApp to move ahead with privacy update despite backlash

#82

Post by [deleted] »

amenod wrote: post #62
popol12 wrote: post #4

Meanwhile I've switched my family and friend to Signal with great success.

I installed Signal recently, but was flabbergasted when it advised me to connect with someone they found in my phone contacts who has recently joined Signal. WTF? If I knew that my contacts were being shared with a 3rd party (Signal), I would never have signed up. Still, better Signal than Facebook, I guess. :-/ P.S.: if I'm missing something and the check was done in privacy-conscious way, I would love to be correct…

[deleted]

Re: WhatsApp to move ahead with privacy update despite backlash

#83

Post by MaxBarraclough »

yalogin wrote: post #32

Reality is no one cares about privacy, there isn’t a dollar amount attached to it like with security. So yes people will be outraged when they are told data is collected about them but then they will see the service offered and accept the collection. The only thing this achieved is made a lot of people realize and vocalize to themselves that they don’t care about privacy. I could t even convince my own family to ditc…

> Reality is no one cares about privacy

Not so. I know several non-technical people who heard about the changes and made the switch to Signal. (Or rather, primarily Signal, but WhatsApp where necessary.) It's not just us HackerNews readers.

I don't expect WhatsApp to be a deserted wasteland any time soon, but it's not the case that no one cares.

> there isn’t a dollar amount attached to it like with security

There isn't really a bright line between the two. Privacy has significant overlap with the C of the CIA triad of cybersecurity.

> I could t even convince my own family to ditch WhatsApp.

That's unfortunate, but not universal.

Re: WhatsApp to move ahead with privacy update despite backlash

#84

Post by loceng »

polote wrote: post #48
egwor wrote: post #14

I'm so disappointed in this. Whatsapp is a functional tool. It was successful since it worked. Facebook has entirely failed to utilise it - to allow external systems to connect in so that businesses can do business on there. The voice calls are also a disaster. They've now come along to start messing with the privacy to start selling ads. It is insane that they're able to make such a mess of this. Is there a word for…

The ARPU that Facebook can make is higher than the average price people are willing to pay to get access to whatsapp. That's all, dont look further

"... the average price people are willing to pay to get access to whatsapp [because the value Facebook provides with its growing networks of sites still isn't adequate enough because Facebook isn't actually an innovative company; and people don't trust or like Facebook enough to pay for the value that privacy, trust, and genuine support would allow for]"

Re: WhatsApp to move ahead with privacy update despite backlash

#85

Post by sneak »

bennyp101 wrote: post #70
amenod wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I installed Signal recently, but was flabbergasted when it advised me to connect with someone they found in my phone contacts who has recently joined Signal. WTF? If I knew that my contacts were being shared with a 3rd party (Signal), I would never have signed up. Still, better Signal than Facebook, I guess. :-/ P.S.: if I'm missing something and the check was done in privacy-conscious way, I would love to be correct…

I don't think they are shared in the same sense that it is shared with WhatsApp/Facebook etc. "Signal periodically sends truncated cryptographically hashed phone numbers for contact discovery. Names are never transmitted, and the information is not stored on the servers. The server responds with the contacts that are Signal users and then immediately discards this information. Your phone now knows which of your conta…

The problem is that phone numbers are a small space for brute force, and depending on how much they truncate, this could be very close to uploading one's address book.

Re: WhatsApp to move ahead with privacy update despite backlash

#86

Post by justapassenger »

egwor wrote: post #14

I'm so disappointed in this. Whatsapp is a functional tool. It was successful since it worked. Facebook has entirely failed to utilise it - to allow external systems to connect in so that businesses can do business on there. The voice calls are also a disaster. They've now come along to start messing with the privacy to start selling ads. It is insane that they're able to make such a mess of this. Is there a word for…

> Facebook has entirely failed to utilise it - to allow external systems to connect in so that businesses can do business on there.

They weren’t allowed to do that under old TOS, and the whole point of this update is to allow data sharing when contacting businesses, that will allow building business tools.

https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/answer...

Re: WhatsApp to move ahead with privacy update despite backlash

#87

Post by MaxBarraclough »

CubsFan1060 wrote: post #52
yalogin wrote: post #32

Reality is no one cares about privacy, there isn’t a dollar amount attached to it like with security. So yes people will be outraged when they are told data is collected about them but then they will see the service offered and accept the collection. The only thing this achieved is made a lot of people realize and vocalize to themselves that they don’t care about privacy. I could t even convince my own family to ditc…

People care, but they are also unwilling to make any sacrifice. They would like more privacy, but would also like to continue using the services that steal their privacy. And they would also like to continue to use the for free. When faced with "continue using the thing I like and lose privacy" vs "Pay for a similar solution", they almost always choose the first.

That isn't a problem here. Signal is free, and already well funded.

Re: WhatsApp to move ahead with privacy update despite backlash

#88

Post by edoloughlin »

tambourine_man wrote: post #41

It's really hard for me to understand why and how something fails or succeeds to grab the public's attention. I've been complaining and refusing to use WhatsApp for years, mostly because it's centralized at the worst possible company. But a boycott of one is not a powerful move and no one cared. Now, for whatever reason, nothing has effectively changed and millions suddenly care. I mean, I'm glad they finally do, do…

Now, for whatever reason, nothing has effectively changed and millions suddenly care

This was discussed on a You Are Not So Smart [1] episode some time over the last few months (I had a look but couldn't find it).

The basic idea was that collective behaviour can change in an instant because of multiple pressures that have been building over time and looking for a single cause (or trigger) is fruitless because no one event has any great significance per se.

The closest that Google would bring me is a paper on 'Threshold Models of Collective Behavior' [2].

[1] https://youarenotsosmart.com/

[2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2778111?seq=1

Re: WhatsApp to move ahead with privacy update despite backlash

#89

Post by majke »

yuriko_boyko wrote: post #29
majke wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than that. (1) The policy differs per country. But how is it different in practice between the EU and USA and Brasil? It's not public knowledge. (2) It's absurd the policy doesn't describe anything useful. I tried to find if the contact book is being sent to facebook and if so, for how long. The wording is so opaque it's impossible to figure out. https://twitter.com/majek04/status/1348574409968275456

The contacts have been shared since 2016. You can get your account info in the Account option, but they make it a pain to get it. Mine took 3 days for an HTML page.

I did that. It doesn't answer the question - is my contact book on facebook servers? If so, how it is processed and for how long.

Re: WhatsApp to move ahead with privacy update despite backlash

#90

Post by pmlnr »

A group of my friends asked to set up a groupchat recently, our requirements varied. Among them:

- needs to be simple (not all of them are techies)

- need to be possible to run on desktop without any mobile need

- not Facebook (my requirement)

So I went and set an XMPP server up on the same machine I have my email and webserver, and wrote a quick guide on how to install blabber.im (a Conversations fork), and register on the server.

With a turnserver running in the background, it can do voice/video calls as well.

The room is not e2e encrypted yet - that is because I wasn't able to get the desktop person to install the omemo plugin for gajim, but that is the sole reason. We'll get there.

There is no history delivered on first connect - e2e encryption would prevent that anyway, similarly to Signal or Whatsapp.

PS: "Why not matrix?" Because at the moment, I despise the matrix clients, all the ones I tried, and the purple-matrix plugin for pidgin/adium/etc is long abandoned, and has no encryption support.

--

EDIT

OK, for those who don't understand what I wrote: I spun my OWN XMPP server. You don't have to, you can use any XMPP/Jabber server, for example any here: https://list.jabber.at/

From a user perspective: get and app, register a user/password on the selected server, done. That is simple.

--

EDIT2

> There is no history delivered on first connect

This is a choice. The tech/option exists: https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0313.html

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