It's silly to think that WhatsApp wasn't sharing data with FB.
WhatsApp has removed answer to “how do I choose not to share data with FB”
61–70 of 178 posts
Re: WhatsApp has removed answer to “how do I choose not to share data with FB”
#62Re: WhatsApp has removed answer to “how do I choose not to share data with FB”
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
I sometimes wonder whether there is any purpose to it in the long term. If/when Signal becomes big enough to be used by a lot of people, they will want to monetize too and the governments will become interested in monitoring messages there too. It just feels futile. As long as companies need to turn a profit and governments can surreptitiously surveil their citizens there's no long-term solution. We can move to the n…
A decentralised, trustless future perhaps? I'm semi-conspiratorial, semi-fatalistic about society's ability to change politics politically / non-technically. There are too many who are too apathetic (and I might even be one of them by already being semi-fatalistic) that anchor the current system in perpetuity. My conspiratorial side says this is by design, whilst my fatalistic side says it's human nature (essentially…
"A decentralised, trustless future perhaps?"
I think we need a DNS-like service that simply hold small encrypted blobs, just big enough to contain an IPv6 address.
When you "add" someone to your list of contacts, you are giving them the key to decrypt the blob that you update with your IP.(Complications ahoy here but this is the basic idea.)
That way, people can message your phone/computer-of-choice direct with whatever E2E protocol you want. No middleman.
Then you need an app layer built on that to manage messaging, video calls, group chats etc. But that app layer could be open and free. People often like some XML based protocol from the 2000s, but as long as it is secure - whatever.
Re: WhatsApp has removed answer to “how do I choose not to share data with FB”
#64Old habits and mindsets never seem to change despite corporate pronouncements and PR puff pieces written by stenographers. The regulators (and legislators) are either the biggest dupes, or much more likely in on it. Let’s not forget the FTC hookup for Netflix by Obama and the eventual payout when he left office. Or Ajit Pai who came from Verizon to run the FTC and undid the Obama era changes favorable to Netflix and…
Earlier this year, when the change was announced and the media talked about it, I saw a ton of people starting to use signal (non-tech neighbours, my plumber, headhunters I still have in my contact list, etc). At this point I asked my mother to install it and to my surprise a lot of her friends where actually on Signal. It's still not the majority but at this point there is a significant user base for signal, much mo…
But are those people still using it?
I saw a lot of those messages too around that time but since then most of them have moved back to WhatsApp as most of their contacts are still there.
Re: WhatsApp has removed answer to “how do I choose not to share data with FB”
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Signal is developed by a non-profit and is open source, they have a higher chance of staying independent. With the cost of cloud services dropping hopefully there is less of the back-pressure to monetise
I’ve always assumed signal was a honeypot. They publish some source code but obviously we can’t verify the actual code running on iOS or (I assume) Android devices am I right? It seems like publishing open source could be a smoke screen. When they push code to devices they could link in alternate libraries that do whatever they want. They may even be able to push special code to targeted phones, avoiding detection by…
If this is your threat model, you can sideload the app instead of installing from the app store. This way, you can verify that you have the same app as everyone else and have not fallen victim to a supply chain attack.
Ensuring you received an unmodified phone without a nefarious operating system or baseband is probably harder.
Re: WhatsApp has removed answer to “how do I choose not to share data with FB”
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
A decentralised, trustless future perhaps? I'm semi-conspiratorial, semi-fatalistic about society's ability to change politics politically / non-technically. There are too many who are too apathetic (and I might even be one of them by already being semi-fatalistic) that anchor the current system in perpetuity. My conspiratorial side says this is by design, whilst my fatalistic side says it's human nature (essentially…
"A decentralised, trustless future perhaps?" I think we need a DNS-like service that simply hold small encrypted blobs, just big enough to contain an IPv6 address. When you "add" someone to your list of contacts, you are giving them the key to decrypt the blob that you update with your IP.(Complications ahoy here but this is the basic idea.) That way, people can message your phone/computer-of-choice direct with whate…
There's so many issues with this. The biggest being the need to be online at the same time.
But other issues: using it from multiple devices? Using it from different locations?
Maybe it'll work with a tor hidden service or something because at least that stays the same (I think some chat apps already so that)
Re: WhatsApp has removed answer to “how do I choose not to share data with FB”
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Signal is developed by a non-profit and is open source, they have a higher chance of staying independent. With the cost of cloud services dropping hopefully there is less of the back-pressure to monetise
I’ve always assumed signal was a honeypot. They publish some source code but obviously we can’t verify the actual code running on iOS or (I assume) Android devices am I right? It seems like publishing open source could be a smoke screen. When they push code to devices they could link in alternate libraries that do whatever they want. They may even be able to push special code to targeted phones, avoiding detection by…
If they'd care to publish it on F-Droid they'd have reproducible builds. But alas they don't.
Re: WhatsApp has removed answer to “how do I choose not to share data with FB”
#68Old habits and mindsets never seem to change despite corporate pronouncements and PR puff pieces written by stenographers. The regulators (and legislators) are either the biggest dupes, or much more likely in on it. Let’s not forget the FTC hookup for Netflix by Obama and the eventual payout when he left office. Or Ajit Pai who came from Verizon to run the FTC and undid the Obama era changes favorable to Netflix and…
Last I checked signal still needs a phone number so that is an issue. Lots of people use smartphones with no sim hooked up and wifi only. I was using wire for a bit but my 2 contacts were forced signed out and the password and password reset does not work only option is to start a new account and now they too were asking for a phone number. So onto something else I guess.
You can have it seems a text to any number to verify so even a dumb mobile phone would work.
Though I totally agree linking an IM account with a mobile number is bad. There's benefits too like discoverability and ease of use but I prefer something where I could be anonymous and have multiple accounts.
Re: WhatsApp has removed answer to “how do I choose not to share data with FB”
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
whatsapp is more secure
What's App is not secure.
This is not true, unlike Telegram, WhatsApp has a reasonable model for E2EE and it's enabled by default. The UI is lackluster and it really should scream more when contacts' public keys change (to prevent MITM attacks), and it doesn't protect metadata such as your contact list at all, but all of that is still better than Telegram, which offers no encryption for group chats at all.
Re: WhatsApp has removed answer to “how do I choose not to share data with FB”
#70I dumped WhatsApp within a few days of when FB said they would be changing how whatsapp deals with user privacy. A lot of other people did too. I'm happily now on Telegram.
Telegram is now going to force ads and block apps that don't show them..
And their chats are not even E2E encrypted except their 'secret chats' but they work only on one device and don't work in groups.