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WhatsApp sends Cease and Desists for apps that use native Android APIs

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Re: WhatsApp sends Cease and Desists for apps that use native Android APIs

#101

Post by Canada »

reitanqild wrote: post #97
Canada wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and Telegram being open allows us to confirm with absolute certainty that it uses no E2EE by default. We don't have the WhatsApp source code, but we don't have to do a lot of reverse engineering to see that it uses this: https://github.com/signalapp/libsignal-protocol-c But yeah, you're right, it could be sending plaintext or deliberately leaking keys somewhere. Unless someone really reverses it we won't know it…

> Unless someone really reverses it we won't know it doesn't as surely as we know that Telegram doesn't use encryption at all. Telegram uses encryption by default, just not E2EE. You can criticise them for - using their own crypto - misleading advertising regarding the quality of said crypto ... and possibly more, but I still suggest we try to stick to the facts.

In the context of a messaging system anything other than E2EE is pretty worthless as far as I'm concerned.

If just using encryption is good enough for you, then why not use Facebook Messanger, Google Hangouts or whatever they call it these days, or WeChat? You can verify their use of encryption with Wireshark.

You argue that Telegram is great because it's open source, but what difference does that really make when it's a centralized service and that centralized service has access to all the plaintext? So what if the client is open source? What does that actually help us verify in this case?

Re: WhatsApp sends Cease and Desists for apps that use native Android APIs

#102

Post by mnm1 »

Here's an idea. When a case like this is thrown out of court, the defendant is awarded 1% of the company's revenues in perpetuity as damages. Or replace that with any decent incentive for asshole companies like FB to pull this kind of shit. There need to be serious negative consequences for abusing the court system and loading it with bullshit cases like this one. There is no agreement here between the two parties. Case dropped. The alternative is fixing our fucked up court system so that it can be used for its intended purposes by non-b/millionaires, but that's highly unlikely to ever happen.

Re: WhatsApp sends Cease and Desists for apps that use native Android APIs

#103

Post by rpeden »

bodas wrote: post #35
thecatspaw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right, they dont interact with whatsapp directly, but indirectly through a android API. The android API cannot be covered by the whatsapp terms (which the developers never agreed to according to the title)

I don't believe that. They never installed Whatsapp? The intersection of people who build chat accessory apps and people who have never installed Whatsapp is surely empty.

I think it depends on where in the world the user is from.

Where I'm located, it doesn't seem like WhatsApp is used much, or at all. I don't think I've ever met anyone in my personal or professional lives who uses it.

So if I were building an app using these APIs, it probably wouldn't even occur to me to test it with WhatsApp. I'd test it with Messenger, sure, and SMS. Maybe even Hangouts, or whatever the newest Google chat app is.

I don't think it's farfetched to think that someone could have received one of these notices even though they've never used WhatsApp.

Re: WhatsApp sends Cease and Desists for apps that use native Android APIs

#104

Post by gsich »

tabs_masterrace wrote: post #46

Remember when Instant Messaging protocols used to be open? When there was a multitude of clients for any given service to chose from? Now IM has left its early adopter stage and became an integral part of everybody's life, but in doing so we became stuck with 100% proprietary WhatsApp. Not undeserved, it works very well with billions of users, and is probably the most usable IM service ever made. But it became so big…

I can't remember, because those times never existed. IRC was the only open one, before XMPP. The first one will stay forever.

All other protocols like ICQ, MSN, AIM were reversed so that you can use your Miranda/Trillian/XYZ, not what I would call "open".

Re: WhatsApp sends Cease and Desists for apps that use native Android APIs

#105

Post by gsich »

sievebrain wrote: post #100
pmontra wrote: post #5

> This letter is not a complete list of all of WhatsApp's rights you might have violated. Fortunately they added this statement because (IANAL) I believe those developers didn't perform any of the activities listed in the bullet points of the letter. However all of third party WhatsApp automation is a gray area. Everybody knows that WhatsApp doesn't welcome it (I really don't know why) and they have the money to liti…

API+messaging is a spam nightmare. Client integrity is a very powerful antispam technique, I used to use it to great effect. Given the near zero value and popularity of legit bots I'd have made the same decision in their shoes

>API+messaging is a spam nightmare.

Not really if done right. Just let the human message first.

Re: WhatsApp sends Cease and Desists for apps that use native Android APIs

#106

Post by gsich »

codegladiator wrote: post #19
pmontra wrote: post #5

> This letter is not a complete list of all of WhatsApp's rights you might have violated. Fortunately they added this statement because (IANAL) I believe those developers didn't perform any of the activities listed in the bullet points of the letter. However all of third party WhatsApp automation is a gray area. Everybody knows that WhatsApp doesn't welcome it (I really don't know why) and they have the money to liti…

> For example a bot API. I never understood why they didn't implement one. I think bot API exists but is only available to selected merchants. I get an automated ping on whatsapp from BookMyShow after booking a ticket with the ticket details.

probably 3rd party service

Re: WhatsApp sends Cease and Desists for apps that use native Android APIs

#107

Post by reitanqild »

Canada wrote: post #101
reitanqild wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless someone really reverses it we won't know it doesn't as surely as we know that Telegram doesn't use encryption at all. Telegram uses encryption by default, just not E2EE. You can criticise them for - using their own crypto - misleading advertising regarding the quality of said crypto ... and possibly more, but I still suggest we try to stick to the facts.

In the context of a messaging system anything other than E2EE is pretty worthless as far as I'm concerned. If just using encryption is good enough for you, then why not use Facebook Messanger, Google Hangouts or whatever they call it these days, or WeChat? You can verify their use of encryption with Wireshark. You argue that Telegram is great because it's open source, but what difference does that really make when it…

> In the context of a messaging system anything other than E2EE is pretty worthless as far as I'm concerned.

To each their own. I've made a choice that I'd rather take the risk of leaking data to Telegram (real but I've reason to belive kow risk) than leaking metadata to Facebook (a given).

I'm considering Signal though.

But don't lie and say not not encrypted when you mean not end-to-end-encrypted.

Re: WhatsApp sends Cease and Desists for apps that use native Android APIs

#108

Post by kartan »

mdpopescu wrote: post #28
Freak_NL wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and I can (and probably do), but the carrot it too sweet for the majority of users.

Now do that with the government.

> Now do that with the government.

It is a similar problem.

You can do that with education, healthcare, transportation, security... You can have a private version of that.

Probably you can't have your own military, even that in the USA is not so clear.

Most people just can't afford the private version. The government version of that services is way cheaper, so you are stuck with it even if the government does not want to invest to have a good service.

Re: WhatsApp sends Cease and Desists for apps that use native Android APIs

#109

Post by brewrwe »

Freak_NL wrote: post #91
furyg3 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, my Signal list of contacts keeps growing here in NL. I do some light proselytizing, but it seems to be moving along on it's own. Hopefully Arjan Lubach (Holland's Jon Oliver) will do a hit-peice on WhatsApp like he did on Facebook at some point in the future. I'd like to delete WhatsApp, but any conversation I have in Signal vs WhatsApp is a small victory that I'll take. If at some point more than 50% of…

Signal inherits some of WhatsApp's limitations though. It requires that the primary device be an Android or IOS based smartphone with an internet connection; and your identifier is your telephone number, which has the same privacy implications as WhatsApp. With the centralised server model choosing Signal over WhatsApp is basically betting that Open Whisper Systems won't monetize your data, or won't be bought out by…

Signal-CLI and Signald both allow one to register a number on a desktop for use with Signal, you can even pull your messages right into weechat if you want: https://github.com/thefinn93/signal-weechat

Re: WhatsApp sends Cease and Desists for apps that use native Android APIs

#110

Post by brewrwe »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #98
msbarnett wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Still sounds better than the US where everyone still uses SMS. In what possible way does "everyone is de facto forced to use the only permitted client of a proprietary platform and agree to whatever terrible terms Facebook, a surveillance platform, dictates" sound better than "everyone still uses an open standard not solely controlled by a private surveillance company, to which any number of different clients can i…

None of the adjectives nor concepts you have applied to SMS apply, including the assertion that any number of clients can interconnect peacefully, that it is open, that it is a standard, that the steering of the technology is not actually done by the private surveillance companies you’ve mysteriously overlooked, not to mention how SMS is easier for law enforcement to acquire than a pack of cigarettes, because the car…

You may not realize it, but on Android, Signal acts very similar to iMessages, pulling in your SMS & MMS so that you can seamlessly text regardless whether the other person is using Signal or not. Most features that come with the Android build just don't exist in Signal for iOS, or are delayed by a year, like Giphy support: https://signal.org/blog/signal-and-giphy-update/

Additionally, if someone is so petty as to consider not using iMessage as a dealbreaker, they likely have other issues that would cause a significant relationship to fail. More than a few families have one Apple user ID for 3+ phones, which makes iMessage effectively break (unless you want mom & dad to see Johnny's messages!).

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