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

WhatsApp goes down for users globally

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 234 posts

Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#131

Post by MattJ100 »

jraph wrote: post #124
rakoo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Core XMPP is decentralized today . Room chats standardization in XMPP started 20 years ago. Any server existing today has solved the issue whatsapp is facing right now.

It has decentralization today , but also no users today . I would be happy with it but my contact list quite empty. I'm not outright rejecting XMPP. I would like it very much to just use XMPP, but something needs to happen. It needs to be easy to use, friction-less, have all the fancy features and probably more to sell than Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Matrix at the same time, which is no small…

My humble solution to this is Snikket: https://snikket.org/

I can't claim it has exact feature parity with Signal/Telegram/WhatsApp, but it has all the important stuff and is good enough for my family to use daily. It also has some advantages, such as not requiring a phone number (which e.g. means that my children can use it on the old "living room tablet").

Snikket counters the "empty contact list" problem and the network effects by focusing on small groups like this, automatically including everyone else in the same group(s) in your contact list. It helps a lot.

The ultimate goal is that we get enough such small groups operating on open networks, eventually the members of those groups will find they can communicate with each other. It's better approach than isolated individuals using XMPP/whatever with empty contact lists just because they believe in it.

Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#132

Post by cyphar »

DocTomoe wrote: post #115
spockz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. That is why I started using “one could” instead of “you can”. This prevented a lot of misunderstanding.

I have been discouraged to use that form because native English speakers have corrected me that unless I am a British monarch, it would be incorrect language use.

Maybe I'm missing a joke, but this is not the case unless you're using "one" as a way of referring to yourself. Saying "one could" to mean "someone could" is perfectly standard English.

Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#135

Post by eye_street »

sneak wrote: post #76
dustedcodes wrote: post #44

Even though I do have WhatsApp I wouldn't have noticed without this HN headline. Everyone I message with is via iMessage or Signal nowadays and I only have WhatsApp because I am part of a few sports clubs which have a WhatsApp group but we don't chat enough for me to notice a downtime like today. Makes me happy to see how I've actually managed to rid myself of WhatsApp for the most part.

WhatsApp is end to end encrypted and AFAIK now has encrypted backups. iMessage intentionally preserves a backdoor in its crypto so that the FBI can read approximately every iMessage sent/received without a warrant, should they so desire.

Would you mind expanding on that last bit? It’s this related to iCloud backups, the ability to add an invisible user to a chat, or something else?

Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#136

Post by themoonisachees »

sgt wrote: post #59
dustedcodes wrote: post #44

Even though I do have WhatsApp I wouldn't have noticed without this HN headline. Everyone I message with is via iMessage or Signal nowadays and I only have WhatsApp because I am part of a few sports clubs which have a WhatsApp group but we don't chat enough for me to notice a downtime like today. Makes me happy to see how I've actually managed to rid myself of WhatsApp for the most part.

Same, I use iMessage for anything critical as friends and family are mostly on iPhones, but for those that aren't I use WhatsApp and Telegram. In some countries WhatsApp is used by almost everyone. I wonder how much all those free users cost Meta each year. Just as a side thought :)

these free users are probably generating revenue by sharing all their conversations to advertisers.

Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#137

Post by sanitycheck »

DocTomoe wrote: post #115
spockz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. That is why I started using “one could” instead of “you can”. This prevented a lot of misunderstanding.

I have been discouraged to use that form because native English speakers have corrected me that unless I am a British monarch, it would be incorrect language use.

If one were to use it to refer to oneself, then one might be royalty. Otherwise, one may do as one likes!

Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#138

Post by worewood »

DocTomoe wrote: post #116
lima wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite is true - of all the major messengers, Telegram is the least secure. It uses a homebrew encryption scheme and does not have E2E encryption (yes, you can enable E2E for individual chats, but nobody uses it because it breaks most features). Not to mention the weird corporate structure, lack of transparency, failed crypto token launch, dishonest marketing...

A non-standardized, homebrew encryption scheme does not necessarily have to be worse than a standardized algorithm - even though it often is. But if implemented correctly and by someone who knows what they are doing, I'd trust a homebrew algo more than one which has been approved by the west's codebreakers for general use.

No post body was provided.

Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#139

Post by asim »

chagaif wrote: post #26

Time to talk about matrix.org and Element not Signal and definitely not Telegram...

I'm sorry but matrix is a convoluted mess. Speaking from experience, when there's a deep focus on protocols and technical architecture before usability it becomes incredibly hard for the consumer side to get started. It's still very much a DIY thing and the promise of Element hosted offerings kind of just defies the point of the federated design for what most came into it for, self hosting.

Honestly, we just need a drop dead simple chat client/server that can be self hosted and may be eventually extended via wireguard/tailscale networks and MagicDNS.

Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally

#140

Post by jve »

jve wrote: post #114
irjustin wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i haven't seen this yet but will definitely be keeping an eye out.

I sent a support question. Anyway, Google doesn't return any concerning info. It could be just kids... but I asked and with 90% probability, those ain't kids :) EDIT: Support answered with generic mail on what to do if problems registering device... eh, whatever.

EDIT2: Hey, now I received new device registration code! (after 1,5hrs) Still no-one receiving these messages?
Post reply on HN