Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?

#191

Post by leobg » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

Maro wrote: post #18

Whatsapp FAQ: WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption is used when you chat with another person using WhatsApp Messenger. End-to-end encryption ensures only you and the person you're communicating with can read or listen to what is sent, and nobody in between, not even WhatsApp. This is because with end-to-end encryption, your messages are secured with a lock, and only the recipient and you have the special key needed to un…

Can I not train a text classifier on encrypted text?

Basically, let the AI figure out what ads get clicked the most for a given string of encrypted 24h window of chat history. Eventually, the AI is going to hit on its “Rosetta Stone”, even without ever formally decrypting the text, much less any human reading it.

With millions of conversations happening on WhatsApp, why shouldn’t that be possible?

And it’s not even a breach, technically, because nothing ever got decrypted, and the similarity vector generated by the AI have, per se, nothing to do with the content of the conversation or the individual that sent them. Run the same training algorithm again and they’d look completely different! Hence they can’t possibly be “personal data” in the sense of the law.

Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?

#192

Post by snowmizuh-04 » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 2:36 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #152

snowmizuh-04 wrote: post #144

The scarier thing to me is when ads match _conversations_ I have with my wife. I told her about this story this morning, and she reminded me about a conversation about stem cell research we had yesterday. I said something along the lines of 'I hope there is a breakthrough soon on regenerating the Isle of Langerhans in the pancreas to treat diabetes.' Sure enough, she noticed an article in her Google News feed later t…

As creepy as this is whenever it happens, I remain convinced it’s observation bias. Because of how often it doesn’t happen. Quoth Richard Feynman: > “You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight... I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!” You were gonna see ads…

I love the Feynman reference. Thank you. And this may be right.

However, I also am reminded of Nassim Taleb's Fat Tony, who when asked 'what are the odds of flipping a coin heads 10 times in a row?' responds with 'fuggehdabowdit. it's a hustle.' There's a scientific response, which can be very naive in some ways, and there's the Fat Tony street analysis. As I've gotten older, I tend to value the latter.

Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?

#193

Post by bhedgeoser » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

xzjis wrote: post #186

I 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 n…

Whatsapp isn't open source. How do you know that the messages are actually e2e encrypted?

Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?

#194

Post by MAGZine » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 2:41 PM UTC

leobg wrote: post #191

Maro wrote: post #18

Whatsapp FAQ: WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption is used when you chat with another person using WhatsApp Messenger. End-to-end encryption ensures only you and the person you're communicating with can read or listen to what is sent, and nobody in between, not even WhatsApp. This is because with end-to-end encryption, your messages are secured with a lock, and only the recipient and you have the special key needed to un…

Can I not train a text classifier on encrypted text? Basically, let the AI figure out what ads get clicked the most for a given string of encrypted 24h window of chat history. Eventually, the AI is going to hit on its “Rosetta Stone”, even without ever formally decrypting the text, much less any human reading it. With millions of conversations happening on WhatsApp, why shouldn’t that be possible? And it’s not even a…

No. Encryption means the data is scrambled. Essentially unrecognizable from noise, save perhaps for some headers.

If you can discern meaning from noise, then your theory would work. But discerning meaning from random noise is obviously impossible (i.e. what if there is no meaning?).

If you leak information than you say, then the encryption is worthless. Harmful, even, because you think you have protection when you do not.

Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?

#195

Post by cumshitpiss » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 2:41 PM UTC

leobg wrote: post #191

Maro wrote: post #18

Whatsapp FAQ: WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption is used when you chat with another person using WhatsApp Messenger. End-to-end encryption ensures only you and the person you're communicating with can read or listen to what is sent, and nobody in between, not even WhatsApp. This is because with end-to-end encryption, your messages are secured with a lock, and only the recipient and you have the special key needed to un…

Can I not train a text classifier on encrypted text? Basically, let the AI figure out what ads get clicked the most for a given string of encrypted 24h window of chat history. Eventually, the AI is going to hit on its “Rosetta Stone”, even without ever formally decrypting the text, much less any human reading it. With millions of conversations happening on WhatsApp, why shouldn’t that be possible? And it’s not even a…

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?

#196

Post by birdsR2befr33 » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 2:41 PM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #172

I’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 believe that it's automated, they scan every message with some embedded piece of code (that you can't really verify and have to trust that's harmless), that looks for key words and serve ads. And don't forget that with judicial order you get 24h-real-time access to any whatsapp account in question.

Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?

#197

Post by Markoff » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 2:43 PM UTC

Easiest explanation would be your keyboard leaking data, what keyboard your wife and you use?

Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?

#198

Post by prego_xo » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 2:45 PM UTC

snowmizuh-04 wrote: post #144

The scarier thing to me is when ads match _conversations_ I have with my wife. I told her about this story this morning, and she reminded me about a conversation about stem cell research we had yesterday. I said something along the lines of 'I hope there is a breakthrough soon on regenerating the Isle of Langerhans in the pancreas to treat diabetes.' Sure enough, she noticed an article in her Google News feed later t…

I'm seeing a lot of people trying to rationalize and excuse this behavior from Google, but man is it a hard sell on me.

My mother recently remarked in a unique conversation that we have had a box of Golden Grahams cereal for a year and should find a recipe to use it up. She opened her phone to search, and lo and behold, the top recommendation after only two letters, R and e, was "Golden Grahams recipes". Not only had that never been a topic of conversation or search beforehand, nor did she have Google open on her phone, but you may have noticed that "Golden Grahams recipes" doesn't even start with R or e. This sparked a long conversation about how privacy really is something worth fighting for.

My only guess is that Google has the ability to listen in because we use Android phones.

Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?

#199

Post by Swizec » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 2:46 PM UTC

snowmizuh-04 wrote: post #192

Swizec wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As creepy as this is whenever it happens, I remain convinced it’s observation bias. Because of how often it doesn’t happen. Quoth Richard Feynman: > “You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight... I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!” You were gonna see ads…

I love the Feynman reference. Thank you. And this may be right. However, I also am reminded of Nassim Taleb's Fat Tony, who when asked 'what are the odds of flipping a coin heads 10 times in a row?' responds with 'fuggehdabowdit. it's a hustle.' There's a scientific response, which can be very naive in some ways, and there's the Fat Tony street analysis. As I've gotten older, I tend to value the latter.

Oh I’m not saying they’re not trying. I’m more saying that they aren’t as good as it sometimes looks.

Humans are very good at finding patterns in happy little accidents. Much better than the ad networks are in making those accidents happen. If the tech was as good as they say, we’d never ever see an ad that wasn’t a hyper relevant instant click.

And it seems unlikely that Apple is selling my iMessage conversations to Facebook. The “we searched for it, created an explicit signal, and forgot because it’s such a habit” explanation seems more likely.

Plus if a simpler method like “hey your location is at a restaurant on most Fridays, why don’t we start pushing restaurant ads on Wednesday” works well enough, why wouldn’t they use it?

Re: Ask HN: Ads triggered by WhatsApp “end to end encrypted” messages?

#200

Post by omniglottal » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 2:46 PM UTC

spmurrayzzz wrote: post #171

snowmizuh-04 wrote: post #144

The scarier thing to me is when ads match _conversations_ I have with my wife. I told her about this story this morning, and she reminded me about a conversation about stem cell research we had yesterday. I said something along the lines of 'I hope there is a breakthrough soon on regenerating the Isle of Langerhans in the pancreas to treat diabetes.' Sure enough, she noticed an article in her Google News feed later t…

This may or may not apply to the anecdote you shared about your wife, but since these apps know your relative proximal location to your weak/strong social connections, they also can know what your friends may search for and is often-used flavor of targeting. e.g. You and a bunch of friends go to dinner and have a conversation about , at least one of those friends googles something about that topic. You later see an a…

Occam's razor, in this situation, is that the corporate entity who profits from collected data while deceiving it's product into perceiving itself as a "customer" might, in fact be... collecting data from its product to sell to it's customers.