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WhatsApp – Opting out of new terms doesn’t stop Facebook taking information

independent.co.uk

101–102 of 102 posts

Re: WhatsApp – Opting out of new terms doesn’t stop Facebook taking information

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> on a guarantee of privacy that has been unilaterally revoked The Whatsapp ToS also says that they can change the ToS anytime they want and however they want and people using their software knew this. This is the risk that exists with every single proprietary platform. If you don't own the code, eventually it is going to screw you, Stallman has been saying so for 40 years now and people still get surprised when it h…

Saying users shouldn't trust the Cloud is absolutely correct. That's not what you said to start with though. You said "I don't get the problem". The problem is that people are getting, in your words, "screwed" by unilateral changes to ToS and privacy agreements because they have been duped into trusting cloud services. The vast majority of WhatsApp users have never heard of Richard Stallman, never mind read his essay…

> The vast majority of WhatsApp users have never heard of Richard Stallman, never mind read his essays on cloud computing.

I agree, but the problem here is ignorance. Ignorant people are always going to get screwed, that's why we should fight ignorance and educate users. Fighting people taking advantage of this ignorance is just fighting the symptoms of the real problem that is ignorance, it is also a losing battle. So, I prefer spending time educating people about these issues rather than attacking whatsapp, facebook and other apps they love as this just makes us look grumpy. I think it's ok to use the cloud as long as you're aware nothing you put in there won't be spied on unless you encrypt _before_ uploading it to the cloud (end to end), then you should be ok. So either don't put anything too personal on the cloud or encrypt it before hand is the advice I give.

Re: WhatsApp – Opting out of new terms doesn’t stop Facebook taking information

#102
post #69

Could everyone just please install Signal and Wire, for open-source, end-to-end encrypted communication?

Got a wire account a few days ago. While my experience on linux was alright a friend of mine went through a lot of trouble.

After the activation he couldn't log in using the browser. It said "no connection" even though that wasn't true. He then installed the Windows desktop app which forced him to upload a photo, which he actually didn't wanted to. Apparently there was a button to skip this step but it didn't work.

After some time we were finally chatting for a while. While we both enjoyed the fact that it is secure, open-source and has some great features (like the yt video integration) he found the desktop client "confusing" (don't really know what exactly he meant by that tbh).

At this point we were unsure whether or not we wanted to continue using wire in the future. But then his desktop application crashed and he couldn't start it anymore. He tried the web app again but it still wouldn't work.

Long story short: Chances are we are not going to use wire again in the future. And this is really unfortunate as I'd prefer to use it! The problem is: convincing people to try it is hard enough. If then their first experience isn't super smooth they a.) won't use it and b.) are probably less open to try a different messenger in the future.

And now what? We can't resort to Signal as I still prefer using a dumb phone. And then there is Telegram but I don't trust their security measures. What's more, I really don't see the necessity to tell a messenger my phone number.

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