Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

WhatsApp moderators can read your messages if someone you talk to reports them

businessinsider.in

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 41 posts

Re: WhatsApp moderators can read your messages if someone you talk to reports them

#21

Post by mankyd »

culopatin wrote: post #18
nc wrote: post #5

so you can report a message thread to fb for abuse and then contractors check the messages to verify for said abuse. how is this news? it's the equivalent of taking a screenshot of a whatsapp thread and reporting that, doesn't affect e2e encrpytion in any way.

But why are we desensitized to move on with life and letting a company lie about what their product offers? Isn’t there a law somewhere about fake claims? I’m sure it’s somewhere in the policies but if a bread company said they were gluten free and they weren’t, they would be in deep shit no?

Because it doesn't sound like a lie to me? They're saying "we don't read your messages - unless you explicitly send us a copy".

Re: WhatsApp moderators can read your messages if someone you talk to reports them

#22

Post by 0xCMP »

rvz wrote: post #3

Beyond the headline, it does only... > ...when a user reports abuse, unencrypted versions of the message are sent to WhatsApp's moderation contractors, ProPublica reports. So in the end, it is possible to abuse this on to anyone and the messages can be sent to Facebook unencrypted. Did WhatsApp (Facebook) disclose this anywhere? If not then, Oh dear.

Literally explains it when reporting. This should not be news or new. Just try reporting a message right now.

Re: WhatsApp moderators can read your messages if someone you talk to reports them

#23

Post by ike77 »

I wonder if Business Insider was paid by Facebook to report a news so absolutely obvious and benign, and package it as if it was part of the serious privacy requests formulated by the public and security/privacy NGOs, in order to discredit those.

Re: WhatsApp moderators can read your messages if someone you talk to reports them

#24

Post by [deleted] »

s_dev wrote: post #10

What I find the most shocking about all this is that people believe Facebook when they said it was E2E. If you can't inspect for yourself the default assumption should be that they're lying. I even recall recommending Signal to friends -- nope. We use WhatsApp it's E2E so even safer than Signal or Telegram that are deceitful as you have to use secret chat to get E2E! All these FB messenger advocates seem to have the…

[deleted]

Re: WhatsApp moderators can read your messages if someone you talk to reports them

#25

Post by KaiserPro »

s_dev wrote: post #11
nc wrote: post #5

so you can report a message thread to fb for abuse and then contractors check the messages to verify for said abuse. how is this news? it's the equivalent of taking a screenshot of a whatsapp thread and reporting that, doesn't affect e2e encrpytion in any way.

If someone other than sender or recipient can read messages -- it's not E2E.

I think you're grasping the wrong end of the stick.

If someone reports you, they (the people receiving the report) will be able to read the messages. This is the same if you use iMessage, Signal or any other system. (ie you take your phone to the police and show them the messages, they will see your messages, obviously.)

The key difference is that facebook has a button to report the message to them.

Re: WhatsApp moderators can read your messages if someone you talk to reports them

#26

Post by criley2 »

rvz wrote: post #3

Beyond the headline, it does only... > ...when a user reports abuse, unencrypted versions of the message are sent to WhatsApp's moderation contractors, ProPublica reports. So in the end, it is possible to abuse this on to anyone and the messages can be sent to Facebook unencrypted. Did WhatsApp (Facebook) disclose this anywhere? If not then, Oh dear.

If you think it's crazy that a user who you send messages to can send your messages to Facebook, wait until you realize they can send your messages to literally everyone and anyone.

E2E only protects between the endpoints, not after.

Re: WhatsApp moderators can read your messages if someone you talk to reports them

#27

Post by _ph_ »

s_dev wrote: post #10

What I find the most shocking about all this is that people believe Facebook when they said it was E2E. If you can't inspect for yourself the default assumption should be that they're lying. I even recall recommending Signal to friends -- nope. We use WhatsApp it's E2E so even safer than Signal or Telegram that are deceitful as you have to use secret chat to get E2E! All these FB messenger advocates seem to have the…

There is no indication that Facebook can read any messages sent encrypted. The headline might be given the wrong impression. But of course, Facebook can read messages which are sent to them in clear text to inspect them for abuse.

Re: WhatsApp moderators can read your messages if someone you talk to reports them

#28

Post by saurik »

glugc wrote: post #8

I read somewhere that WhatsApp uses some AI to detect CSAM and send content automatically and without user consent to Facebook for review. Has this been confirmed?

https://twitter.com/wcathcart/status/1423701473624395784

^ This is the Head of WhatsApp at Facebook specifically calling out Apple for their client-side scanning, pointing out that Apple should instead have a way to report content; so, while he technically could be lying, I doubt that's true.

Re: WhatsApp moderators can read your messages if someone you talk to reports them

#29

Post by KaiserPro »

glugc wrote: post #8

I read somewhere that WhatsApp uses some AI to detect CSAM and send content automatically and without user consent to Facebook for review. Has this been confirmed?

it is not confirmed.

The wired/gizmodo article tries its best to imply that it does.

the main claim comes from one of the moderators saying that: "the ai keeps sending us mundane pictures, like kids in bathtubs". This has allowed people to claim that facebook are scanning every image/message. Where as, obviously given the paltry number of moderators, your going to us AI to triage messages. Otherwise you'd have to spend more cash on staff

I think there is another bit where someone says they can trace the journey of the image. Its pretty trivial to do this with metadata, given that whatsapp leaks a fair bit of metadata its not suprising.

Re: WhatsApp moderators can read your messages if someone you talk to reports them

#30

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

Many years ago I read how Facebook was developing technology where they would hash content before encrypting, checking against a list and then notifying. Current csam tech basically.

That time I understood the whole e2e is for outsiders. Essentially, you cant have this data, only we do. First dibs and all.

Post reply on HN