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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

#121

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #52
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.

That’s true. But there’s another problem with something like Matrix. It’s not to be adopted by the masses by design. The clients/apps are miles away from a nerd/tech savvy person would like to use and another few miles away from the UX non-nerds would want to see. So that’s dba anyway - dead before arrival.

What's wrong with the design of Element? I don't think it's anymore complicated than e-mail and even my grandpa has one of those

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

#122

Post by tremon »

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.

Banking is so strange. The bank grants you ownership over some pieces of paper that may not even really exist.

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

#123

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

skrebbel wrote: post #111
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What in the world? They don’t have to use it. This has to be one of the worst arguments I’ve ever seen. Did your friends throw their iPhones in the trash when ApplePay came about?

The argument is "this app, which promises privacy and security in ways I do not have the skills to verify, is made by people who also think cryptocurrencies are a good idea". That is a pretty compelling argument to people who think cryptocurrencies are all about scams and/or useless pollution (a sizeable portion of society). It suggests that the people behind Signal may not be as trustworthy as they're made out to be…

> It suggests that the people behind Signal may not be as trustworthy as they're made out to be.

trust only works in retrospect (it can't be extended into the future to a party simply because they make a promise)

all such relationships have an expiry date (since as the trusted party evolves or needs to reinvent itself to satisfy shareholders). what can prevent this are bullet-proof contracts (that's not how people make decisions though - they never read the fine-print, review it when it changes and instead work on gut-feeling and emotions).

putting your trust into a brand/product is always going to eventually hurt you. A product having reached the size of Signal will most certainly throw part of it's user-base to the curb if it thinks it's held back by their opinions/goals.

The disconnect is people thinking Signal owes them something (when everybody actually used it for free until now).

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

#124

Post by MAGZine »

nine_k wrote: post #95
MAGZine wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are mad about whatsapp because it used to be a good platform that they now feel compelled to abandon. I don't think people have any particular allegiance to fb messenger—it exists and is something to be tolerated. the whole "but the privacy policy changes weren't that bad!!!" to which I say: it was simply the straw that broke the camel's back. People didn't want their metadata harvestsed by FB, and this was a…

The problem is that the protests are not framed this way. Not "WA was going downhill for years, and now my patience ran out", but "Ouch, this particular change in ToS is a game-changer, all is lost, I'm quitting!!" This undermines trust to the argument. It looks more like it aims for a knee-jerk reaction, all emotion, zero thought. If you don a large enough tinfoil hat, you can even imagine for a second that somebody…

People's protest was other fb data harvesting. Even if they didn't understand the specific changes in the tos, they had legitimate grievances.

Which is to say, "you're only allowed to me mad about a change when it's rolled out" is not a theory I buy into.

The reason the exodus happened was not "because" of the privacy change, in the same way the dam didn't break because a squirrel running across knocked the "last piece" loose.

Years of negligence are responsible.

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

#125

Post by cookiengineer »

seanieb wrote: post #114
spicyramen wrote: post #96

My personal experience is that I moved some friends to Telegram and kept family in WhatsApp.The time using the phone decreased, I found having 2 messengers more beneficial as I will switch only when there is some relevant conversation or topic happening.

Telegram is LESS secure than WhatsApp. https://www.wired.com/story/telegram-encryption-whatsapp-set...

... and Telegram FOSS [1] fixes all of the mentioned points?

[1] https://github.com/Telegram-FOSS-Team/Telegram-FOSS

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

#126

Post by yaur »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #92
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.

What in the world? They don’t have to use it. This has to be one of the worst arguments I’ve ever seen. Did your friends throw their iPhones in the trash when ApplePay came about?

My customers in Latin America still use whatsapp so i have no choice but to use it even if they go full bitcoin mining malware.

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

#127

Post by jcelerier »

jimkleiber wrote: post #97
foolinaround wrote: post #2

In Jan, there was a big outcry, i thought all would move to signal. I have about 25% of the conversations in signal, but especially for groups, whatsapp is so sticky, that they seem to have broadly failed in signal, and are back to whatsapp. I continue to have individual conversations on signal with most friends, but the idea of being able to leave whatsapp seems to be much tougher than I thought.

Not sure for you, but what makes WhatsApp the stickiest for me out of the chat apps is the statuses (stories). I start many of my conversations on WA by seeing someone's status (story). On Signal, Telegram, or even iMessage, there isn't that nudge to restart the conversation. I think if those platforms made some story-like feature, I'd have an easier time leaving WhatsApp.

I have never ever seen anyone around me do a WhatsApp story

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

#129

Post by theelous3 »

slickdork wrote: post #75
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've never heard of wire but it looks good, aside from the pricing. I'm hoping the future is a migration to a protocol such as Matrix, rather than users endlessly hoping from one product to another until they get sold out. https://matrix.org/

My friends and I did just that. I run us a federated self host. It's great. They aren't tech savvy - and no complaints.

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

#130

Post by newbie578 »

How can it be illegal? It is their platform, their own rules, right? If you don't like it, then just don't use it.

There are other platforms which are more than good enough.

/s if not obv, I'm making fun of people defending the App Store, yet when FB is in question are blatantly showing their hypocrisy.

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