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WhatsApp banned on House staffers' devices

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Re: WhatsApp banned on House staffers' devices

#101

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

oceansky wrote: post #96
BeetleB wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh. I have a friend here in the US. His father passed away in his home country. No will. The whole family needed to show up in court for probate, but he could not travel at that time. The court: "No problem, just join the session on video using WhatsApp"

Really? Remote court sessions are usually on Google Meet or Zoom

It sounds like the court they are referring to is in the "home country". The friend whose father passed is in the US but the "home country" is where the father passed.

Re: WhatsApp banned on House staffers' devices

#102

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cubefox wrote: post #98
Goronmon wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is WhatsApp safer to use than Microsoft Teams?

WhatsApp is always end-to-end encrypted, Teams only in certain cases.

> WhatsApp is always end-to-end encrypted, Teams only in certain cases

Which is an anti-feature given this application: you want a certain level of oversight and control over what staffers communicate.

Re: WhatsApp banned on House staffers' devices

#103

Post by ethan_smith »

alephnerd wrote: post #11

This is due to the addition of Meta AI in WhatsApp [0]. Unsurprisingly, data egress to third parties is a major security vector - especially for mission critical jobs like working in the House. MS apps incorporating Copilot have faced similar blocks as well. This requirement for data stewardship is called out in HITPOL8 as well [1][2] (the AI tool standards set by the House CAO). [0] - https://faq.whatsapp.com/203220…

Signal would be the obvious choice here - open source, no AI integration, minimal metadata collection, and recommended by security professionals for sensitive communications.

Re: WhatsApp banned on House staffers' devices

#104

Post by cubefox »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #102
cubefox wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp is always end-to-end encrypted, Teams only in certain cases.

> WhatsApp is always end-to-end encrypted, Teams only in certain cases Which is an anti-feature given this application: you want a certain level of oversight and control over what staffers communicate.

Their statement doesn't sound like what you said at all:

> The Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high-risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, absence of stored data encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use

(Of course that statement seems to be highly confused overall. What "stored data encryption"?)

Re: WhatsApp banned on House staffers' devices

#105

Post by preachermon »

aaroninsf wrote: post #57

Serious question: who else takes for granted that Zuck gets a daily summary of all high-level federal governmental communications, as harvested via backdoors or simply from non-end-to-end encrypted traffic on any Meta property? I assume he does. I assume moreover that most people aware of this at Meta consider this due diligence in defending shareholder value. What's that line from Dune 2, a wise hunter climbs the ta…

Official press release, https://www.army.mil/article/286317/army_launches_detachment...

he U.S. Army is establishing Detachment 201: The Army’s Executive Innovation Corps, a new initiative designed to fuse cutting-edge tech expertise with military innovation. On June 13, 2025, the Army will officially swear in four tech leaders.

Det. 201 is an effort to recruit senior tech executives to serve part-time in the Army Reserve as senior advisors. In this role they will work on targeted projects to help guide rapid and scalable tech solutions to complex problems. By bringing private-sector know-how into uniform, Det. 201 is supercharging efforts like the Army Transformation Initiative, which aims to make the force leaner, smarter, and more lethal.

The four new Army Reserve Lt. Cols. are

Shyam Sankar, Chief Technology Officer for Palantir;

Andrew Bosworth, Chief Technology Officer of Meta;

Kevin Weil, Chief Product Officer of OpenAI; and

Bob McGrew, advisor at Thinking Machines Lab and former Chief Research Officer for OpenAI.

So yes, Meta's CTO is now a high ranking army officer

Re: WhatsApp banned on House staffers' devices

#106

Post by derwiki »

worik wrote: post #97
ghc wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you're unaware that there is a special, DoD-certified version of Teams called "Gov Teams", which can be used to share data at multiple impact levels securely. This version of Teams, and the entire Office365 suite, has undergone extensive security certification for use with high IL data.

[flagged]

Well it _has_, but sure you can bring the value of the certifications into question

Re: WhatsApp banned on House staffers' devices

#107

Post by thesuitonym »

cubefox wrote: post #98
Goronmon wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is WhatsApp safer to use than Microsoft Teams?

WhatsApp is always end-to-end encrypted, Teams only in certain cases.

If you think end-to-end encryption is the only thing that matters in security, then yeah sure, WhatsApp is more secure.

Personally, I'd be embarrassed to let people know I thought that way, but to each their own.

Re: WhatsApp banned on House staffers' devices

#108

Post by cubefox »

thesuitonym wrote: post #107
cubefox wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp is always end-to-end encrypted, Teams only in certain cases.

If you think end-to-end encryption is the only thing that matters in security, then yeah sure, WhatsApp is more secure. Personally, I'd be embarrassed to let people know I thought that way, but to each their own.

So you would potentially prefer an app without end-to-end encryption to WhatsApp? What are these important security features?

Re: WhatsApp banned on House staffers' devices

#110

Post by lazyasciiart »

tsumnia wrote: post #82
alephnerd wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MS products allow you to store data locally without any egress, so an IT team has access to it. This is the sticking point, because WhatsApp has now integrated Meta AI into the app, but (obviously) do not provide an on-prem data store. This is why Deepseek AI (the Deepseek app) and ChatGPT (the OpenAI app) are barred as well. Data Stewardship and Zero Trust has been an internal initiative in the House for a couple ye…

> The fact that almost no one on this [thread] knows these Its not that they aren't known, but rather we just came off a long trend of thin-clients and cloud storage. Some companies merely stay in that ethereal space, while others had concerns about their data. Criticizing people for doing what experts were pushing for the past 20 years doesn't need to devolve into calling their expertise into question. The downvotes…

I don't think I understand what you're saying here.
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