It could be the keyboard on your phone that's essentially keylogging everything you type and sending it to advertisers. I have no idea whether this may have really happened, but it's certainly feasible.
Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?
181–190 of 473 posts
Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?
#182I’m convinced WhatsApp’s e2e is BS. Because multiple times I’ve mentioned something I’ve never even googled and then had Facebook ads for those things show up minutes later. The most notable one being renting an apartment. I viewed an apartment then sent a message to the agent requesting window grills or latches and then had adverts for that stuff straight away. When ever I mention this on HN I get downvoted with lam…
It's e2e encrypted, just they have the keys and use them :)
Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?
#183I'm going to say the same thing I always say when it comes to E2EE.
E2EE does not mean anything in a world where both ends are owned by the transport layer.
I'm not saying they're doing anything wrong, you could be mistaken and information can be exfiltrated some other way.
But: Either you trust the transport layer or you don't. Saying "E2EE means the transport doesn't have to be trusted" while running a neigh impossible to reverse engineer binary on both ends distrubuted by the network --- *is* trusting the network.
Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?
#184I’m convinced WhatsApp’s e2e is BS. Because multiple times I’ve mentioned something I’ve never even googled and then had Facebook ads for those things show up minutes later. The most notable one being renting an apartment. I viewed an apartment then sent a message to the agent requesting window grills or latches and then had adverts for that stuff straight away. When ever I mention this on HN I get downvoted with lam…
this is the point. too much evidence against it and not enough evidence for it. i just don't trust facebook, google, apple etc.
Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?
#185I’m convinced WhatsApp’s e2e is BS. Because multiple times I’ve mentioned something I’ve never even googled and then had Facebook ads for those things show up minutes later. The most notable one being renting an apartment. I viewed an apartment then sent a message to the agent requesting window grills or latches and then had adverts for that stuff straight away. When ever I mention this on HN I get downvoted with lam…
I dont need to believe anything, its proven by mane scientific researches.
Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?
#186I think Meta is reading your messages locally on your device and showing you personalized ads from the messages that are actually on your device. It's not uploaded on Meta's servers and not in anyway breaking the e2ee, because your device is one of the 2 ends. If you don't use Facebook or Instagram on your phone then no personalized ads is shown.
Everything above is supposition from something I vaguely remember but not 100% sure.
Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?
#187I’m convinced WhatsApp’s e2e is BS. Because multiple times I’ve mentioned something I’ve never even googled and then had Facebook ads for those things show up minutes later. The most notable one being renting an apartment. I viewed an apartment then sent a message to the agent requesting window grills or latches and then had adverts for that stuff straight away. When ever I mention this on HN I get downvoted with lam…
I had a private family Slack instance, and we observed similar things. A question about buying a particular brand of soap would be spoken in the channel and ads for that exact soap would show up minutes later on Facebook. No searches or other activity, just a text query to a person through Slack.
I prefer to think that some of this is chance, or Facebook just guessing really, creepily well. But after the 3rd or 4th time we observed this same scenario play out, trust has eroded, even if I have no evidence as to how this is happening. It's time to change up the tools.
I now self-host an open source chat application, and we have not had another repeat of this kind of creepy ad invasion.
Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?
#188Just because that the messages might be sent end-to-end encrypted from Sue to Joe does not mean Meta cannot read them. Meta has control over the app Sue uses. So they could send them to Meta unencrypted in addition to sending them to Joe in an encrypted fashion. Or they just extract the relevant terms: Sue->Joe: "Hello Joe, I'm so excited! We are going to have a baby! Let's call it Dingbert. You're not the father! Ji…
> Just because that the messages might be sent end-to-end encrypted from Sue to Joe does not mean Meta cannot read them.
so what's the point? just inconvenience. better to use telegram at this point.
Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?
#189I’m convinced WhatsApp’s e2e is BS. Because multiple times I’ve mentioned something I’ve never even googled and then had Facebook ads for those things show up minutes later. The most notable one being renting an apartment. I viewed an apartment then sent a message to the agent requesting window grills or latches and then had adverts for that stuff straight away. When ever I mention this on HN I get downvoted with lam…
Isn’t that because they can read sender and recipient? So if you write someone who do a lot of renting stuff they believe you might like it, too? Just a guess.
Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?
#190I’m convinced WhatsApp’s e2e is BS. Because multiple times I’ve mentioned something I’ve never even googled and then had Facebook ads for those things show up minutes later. The most notable one being renting an apartment. I viewed an apartment then sent a message to the agent requesting window grills or latches and then had adverts for that stuff straight away. When ever I mention this on HN I get downvoted with lam…
I dont need to believe anything, its proven by mane scientific researches.
Can you link to some?