US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private • Hacker News Board

Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private

#51

Post by Forgeties79 » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 3:58 PM UTC

renegade-otter wrote: post #41

Anyone trusting Facebook to follow basic human decency and, yes, laws, is a fool.

They got caught torrenting unbelievable amounts of content, an act that committed even just a few times can get my home Internet shut down with no recourse (best outcome). Literally nothing happened. Combine the fact that nothing legally significant ever happens to them with zuckerburg’s colossal ego and complete lack of ethical foundation, and you have quite the recipe.

And I’m not even getting into the obvious negative social/political repercussions that have come directly from Facebook and their total lack of accountability/care. They make the world worse. Aside from the inconvenience for hobbyist communities and other groups, all of which should leave Facebook anyway, we would lose nothing of value if Facebook was shut down today. The world would get slightly better.

Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private

#52

Post by xvector » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 3:58 PM UTC

renegade-otter wrote: post #41

Anyone trusting Facebook to follow basic human decency and, yes, laws, is a fool.

Anyone blindly believing every random allegation is also a fool, especially when the app in question has been thoroughly reverse engineered and you can freely check for yourself that it's using the same protocol as Signal for encryption

Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private

#53

Post by j45 » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #49

Ms-J wrote: post #5

Who do they expect to fall for the claims that a Facebook owned messenger couldn't read your "encrypted" messages? It's truly funny. Any large scale provider with headquarters in the USA will be subject to backdoors and information sharing with the government when they want to read or know what you are doing.

> Any large scale provider with headquarters in the USA will be subject to backdoors and information sharing with the government when they want to read or know what you are doing. Not just the USA. This is basically universal.

It's not guaranteed or by default.

This type of generalized defeatism does more harm than not.

Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private

#54

Post by codexetreme » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

kachapopopow wrote: post #50

yes, this is a very known fact that it is not E2EE but Client2Server Encrypted. Otherwise your message history wouldn't work.

Might be a rookie question. But exactly why would chat history not work?

Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private

#55

Post by j45 » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

huijzer wrote: post #38

Ms-J wrote: post #5

Who do they expect to fall for the claims that a Facebook owned messenger couldn't read your "encrypted" messages? It's truly funny. Any large scale provider with headquarters in the USA will be subject to backdoors and information sharing with the government when they want to read or know what you are doing.

I have reached the point that I think even the chat control discussion might be a distraction because essentially they can already get anything. Yeah government needs to fill in a form to request, but that’s mostly automated I believe

Such initiatives are likely trying to make it easier.

Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private

#56

Post by xvector » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

kachapopopow wrote: post #50

yes, this is a very known fact that it is not E2EE but Client2Server Encrypted. Otherwise your message history wouldn't work.

This is a total misunderstanding of how E2EE works.

I need to either enter my password or let the app access my iCloud Keychain to let it derive the backup encryption key.

It's also well known that they worked with the Moxie's team to implement the same E2EE protocol as Signal. So messages are E2EE as well.

Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private

#57

Post by londons_explore » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 4:01 PM UTC

Retr0id wrote: post #12

londons_explore wrote: post #8

I want whatsapp to decrypt the messages in a secure enclave and render the message content to the screen with a secure rendering pipeline, as is done with DRM'ed video. Compromise of the client side application or OS shouldn't break the security model. This should be possible with current API's, since each message could if needed simply be a single frame DRM'ed video if no better approach exists (or until a better ap…

Signal uses the DRM APIs to mitigate threats like Microsoft Recall, but it doesn't stop the app itself from reading its own data. I don't really see how it's possible to mitigate client compromise. You can decrypt stuff on a secure enclave but at some point the client has to pull it out and render it.

> don't really see how it's possible to mitigate client compromise.

Think of the way DRM'ed video is played. If the media player application is compromised, the video data is still secure. Thats because the GPU does both the decryption and rendering, and will not let the application read it back.

Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private

#58

Post by ath3nd » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #49

Ms-J wrote: post #5

Who do they expect to fall for the claims that a Facebook owned messenger couldn't read your "encrypted" messages? It's truly funny. Any large scale provider with headquarters in the USA will be subject to backdoors and information sharing with the government when they want to read or know what you are doing.

> Any large scale provider with headquarters in the USA will be subject to backdoors and information sharing with the government when they want to read or know what you are doing. Not just the USA. This is basically universal.

[dead]

Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private

#59

Post by xvector » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

bogwog wrote: post #39

Retr0id wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal uses the DRM APIs to mitigate threats like Microsoft Recall, but it doesn't stop the app itself from reading its own data. I don't really see how it's possible to mitigate client compromise. You can decrypt stuff on a secure enclave but at some point the client has to pull it out and render it.

> I don't really see how it's possible to mitigate client compromise Easy: pass laws requiring chat providers to implement interoperability standards so that users can bring their own trusted clients. You're still at risk if your recipient is using a compromised client, but that's a problem that you have the power to solve, and it's much easier to convince someone to switch a secure client if they don't have to worry…

You seem to think the government wants your messages to be private and would "pass laws" to this effect.

Methinks you put far too much faith in the government, at least from my understanding of the history of cybersecurity :)

Re: US has investigated claims WhatsApp chats aren't private

#60

Post by embedding-shape » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 4:03 PM UTC

j45 wrote: post #53

Aurornis wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any large scale provider with headquarters in the USA will be subject to backdoors and information sharing with the government when they want to read or know what you are doing. Not just the USA. This is basically universal.

It's not guaranteed or by default. This type of generalized defeatism does more harm than not.

No, assuming that anything besides what you can verify yourself is compromised isn't "defeatism", although I'd agree that it's overkill in many cases.

But for your data you want to absolutely keep secret? It's probably the only to guarantee someone else somewhere cannot see it, default to assume if it's remote, someone will eventually be able to access it. If not today, it'll be stored and decrypted later.