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WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

androidpolice.com

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Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#81

Post by ludamad »

Sunspark wrote: post #72
aloknnikhil wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It maybe a bad argument but it's a practical view. Governments around the world (see: India, China) have strict laws around crypto. By law of association, any service that remotely mentions this is severely scrutinized. I can hardly blame my friends if they want no part of this.

Crypto is so strange. You claim ownership over a string of 1s and 0s. Exclusive rights.

You don't, though. That's more like IP law, where people really do claim rights over the usage of strings. Crypto is more like allocating a string on some servers with a decentralized process

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#82

Post by vmception »

hudon wrote: post #62
godelski wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they don’t want anything to do with bitcoins Honestly, this is a bad argument. You can use Signal and never send a gif or stickers. You don't have to do anything with ~~stickers~~crypto when using Signal. It is an opt-in feature that is probably going to not be used my 90% of people. This is just a bad argument surrounding the whole ordeal. Now the arguments about: regulations, Moxie's involvement (stated he has no…

Well, their opinion could be that Bitcoin is extremely wasteful and damaging to our environment for very little value, and so they do not want to support any organization that supports Bitcoin. A boycott, if you will. I’m not arguing that position but I’m just saying that if that is the case, then their boycott is more reasonable than say a “stickers” boycott.

Mobilecoin is a proof of stake system and there is no Bitcoin involved. Proof of Stake systems are not damaging to the environment like Proof of Work systems (like Bitcoin’s) are or can potentially be.

Yeah there is a big education gap that just gets wider with stigma.

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#83

Post by saganus »

Sunspark wrote: post #72
aloknnikhil wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It maybe a bad argument but it's a practical view. Governments around the world (see: India, China) have strict laws around crypto. By law of association, any service that remotely mentions this is severely scrutinized. I can hardly blame my friends if they want no part of this.

Crypto is so strange. You claim ownership over a string of 1s and 0s. Exclusive rights.

I don't think cryptocoins are about "claiming" ones and zeroes, but instead having the ability to "use" those ones and zeroes, unlike anybody else.

Although ultimately the effect is similar to "claiming" them by virtue of being the only one (as long as you don't share the private key of course) that can operate on those one and zeroes (i.e transfering them to some other address).

Unlike, say, copyright, where even if you claim ownership, someone else can also operate on it (e.g. piracy), illegally of course, but still can.

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#84

Post by nimih »

godelski wrote: post #34
nopato wrote: post #13

To be honest I feel a bit disenfranchised. I’ve used all my energy to convert all my friends to signal when the WhatsApp privacy policy fiasco happened and now they’re saying it was a waste of time since they don’t want anything to do with bitcoins.. I can’t blame them as I also don’t want this on my messaging app. I feel like I will just give up and use WhatsApp and assume that I only had privacy pre-internet.

> they don’t want anything to do with bitcoins Honestly, this is a bad argument. You can use Signal and never send a gif or stickers. You don't have to do anything with ~~stickers~~crypto when using Signal. It is an opt-in feature that is probably going to not be used my 90% of people. This is just a bad argument surrounding the whole ordeal. Now the arguments about: regulations, Moxie's involvement (stated he has no…

If you're trying to convince your friends and family to use some obscure tech nerd messaging app instead of what they're used to (and all of their friends probably use), it doesn't really matter whether their arguments are "good" or "bad" from a factual standpoint, because most people (or, at least, the OP as we can see here) don't really want to get into a debate defending the bad PR signal has created for itself. Getting folks to change the software they're used to for something new is a fundamentally hard thing to do even when you're providing a _clear upgrade_ (just look at how touchy people get at needing to change text editors/ides, or how vocally people complain about literally every web UI redesign), and every extra hurdle added to that process is going to make it exponentially harder.

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#85

Post by 29083011397778 »

minot wrote: post #61
lmm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any time there's a project that's almost open-source, almost open standards, that's how it ends up going. If you'd gone for Matrix you wouldn't have that problem, because even if their developers decide to embed some bitcoin nonsense into the official client, the protocol and ecosystem is much bigger than that.

You might say that well I’m no worse off than before which is true but still feels weird that I was unable to use my existing riot im account when I wanted to sign into Mozilla’s riot server. I ended up creating a different login for Mozilla’s riot. I think of myself as a technophile but element/matrix/riot made me eat the humble pie.

Is it possible you were trying to login without the full path? You're email isn't minot, it's minot@hckrnews.com. Similarly, on Matrix, your username isn't minot, but minot@matrix.org. Trying to sign in with your provider can be non-obvious, and would also cause the issue it sounds like you were having :)

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#86

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

godelski wrote: post #34
nopato wrote: post #13

To be honest I feel a bit disenfranchised. I’ve used all my energy to convert all my friends to signal when the WhatsApp privacy policy fiasco happened and now they’re saying it was a waste of time since they don’t want anything to do with bitcoins.. I can’t blame them as I also don’t want this on my messaging app. I feel like I will just give up and use WhatsApp and assume that I only had privacy pre-internet.

> they don’t want anything to do with bitcoins Honestly, this is a bad argument. You can use Signal and never send a gif or stickers. You don't have to do anything with ~~stickers~~crypto when using Signal. It is an opt-in feature that is probably going to not be used my 90% of people. This is just a bad argument surrounding the whole ordeal. Now the arguments about: regulations, Moxie's involvement (stated he has no…

> Honestly, this is a bad argument.

It is a protective heuristic for the non-tech people.

Basically, the more something mentions crypto coins, the higher the likelihood that it is a scam of some type.

It is not always true, but it is true enough for the average person and , in general, functions pretty well as a heuristic.

Thus, they hear about this new, previously unknown, chat service, and see an association with crypto coins, their scam detector immediately goes off, and they don’t want anything to do with it.

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#87

Post by johnhenry »

Sunspark wrote: post #72
aloknnikhil wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It maybe a bad argument but it's a practical view. Governments around the world (see: India, China) have strict laws around crypto. By law of association, any service that remotely mentions this is severely scrutinized. I can hardly blame my friends if they want no part of this.

Crypto is so strange. You claim ownership over a string of 1s and 0s. Exclusive rights.

Applies to intellectual property in general.

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#88

Post by 29083011397778 »

nzgrover wrote: post #64

Why is Wire never mentioned in these discussions on HN, is there something I'm missing? Seems like the most secure option to me: https://wire.com/en/security/

I use Wire with some family members. The web client takes an age to load, and the best way to describe the UX of their mobile (Android) client is "Like wading through molasses".

Swiping or hitting the back key to leave a chat, entering a chat from the group/contact list, and tapping on a notification to reply in-app is absolutely painful.

Some inspired soul will say "Great! That's a golden opportunity for a Matrix bridge!" And it would be, if that wasn't explicitly against Wire's ToS. As such, it's the absolute dog of an app, or nothing. iOS must be better though, as nobody else has suggested switching. And between poor performance on Wire, or all the drawbacks of Whatsapp, I know which one I choose.

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#89

Post by mwambua »

paxys wrote: post #33
mwambua wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its peak revenue, disclosed by Facebook at the time of acquisition, was ~$1.5 million/year Not sure where you got that number, but in 2013 (before aquisition) they reported ~$10 million in revenue. ( https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680114... ) They brought in $15 million in the first half of 2014. ( https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680114... ) They only had 55 employees at…

This was my source - https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/04091... (which points to that same document but somehow draws a different conclusion). Also that document shows a net loss of $230 million in that same period, so not exactly on a strong path to profitability.

Thanks! Looks like they link Facebook's 10Q filing. Can't tell how they arrived at the number though.

I agree that their losses were surprisingly high at the time... especially given how lean their engineering team and operations were supposed to be. (https://blog.whatsapp.com/1-million-is-so-2011/?lang=en)

Re: WhatsApp's new privacy policy is so bad it might be illegal

#90

Post by Hydraulix989 »

Sunspark wrote: post #72
aloknnikhil wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It maybe a bad argument but it's a practical view. Governments around the world (see: India, China) have strict laws around crypto. By law of association, any service that remotely mentions this is severely scrutinized. I can hardly blame my friends if they want no part of this.

Crypto is so strange. You claim ownership over a string of 1s and 0s. Exclusive rights.

That's not how it works. It's more like there's this shared network of participants that has strong incentives to consistently agree that you own a numeric measurement of "value" and that you have the agreed-upon ability to elect to transfer portions of this value to other participants in the network (because you _know_ a specific private key and can irrefutably demonstrate that you know it even without disclosing it).
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