Not exactly related, but does anyone know what's the best way to backup WhatsApp data on an Android phone without using Google drive these days?
I use Syncthing to backup WA and Signal
Google can now read your WhatsApp messages
101–110 of 343 posts
Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages
#102The whole situation with Gemini Apps Activity setting is so frustrating. Even if I pay for Gemini Pro, the only way to make sure there will be no human looking at your chats is to set Apps Activity to off, which means you don't have any history for Gemini chats, even for the messages from a minute ago.
Reminiscent of their heavy handed approach to disabling watch history on YouTube, even when paying for YouTube Premium.
(Google punishes viewers who make themselves less valuable to advertisers by giving them an entirely blank homepage.)
Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages
#103how does this work ? Aren't the whatsapp data encrypted locally ?
You have to unencrypt data to process it and as soon as you do that, the right Kernel APIs are enough to see whatever you want -- here the accessibility APIs are probably enough to read any text you would be able to read.
another person in the thread suggests it's working over a screen capture stream. But that's what i'm wondering : are they working over a video of the screen or by integrating directly with the internals of the OS.
Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages
#104Google has been working on this since November last year going by the wayback archive of the support page for this feature. I'm not seeing any indication that Gemini can read your messages, though. You can compose messages and start calls, but I can't get it to read me any of my messages. In fact, I can't even get it to send messages to group chats, only to individual contacts. The feature makes a lot of sense, of co…
[deleted]
Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because people collectively vote for the ad model over the subscription model.
Are those the only options? How about paying once, owning a specific version and that's it?
Not great for a chat app, which needs ongoing active servers and someone to fix stuff that breaks, even if you feature-freeze it.
Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages
#106At least Google users get a usable AI for all of their phones spying.
Siri can't even pronounce my own name correctly!
Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
The line is blurry. Google is positioning Gemini not just as an app, but as a OS level feature. The OS can by definition reach into any third-app app to do anything it wants. I'll give some more examples of OS-level features in case it's not clear: copy/paste is an OS-level feature and it is designed to extract arbitrary text or content from third party apps (copy) and insert them into third party apps (paste); scree…
Dear god! Are you sure? If I ever sensed a forkable event for Android...
Well, really the line was crossed when Google Play Services got special privileges (and third party app developers were encouraged to call on Google Play Services as the only practical way to do various things, some of which maybe should have been part of the OS). And the "assistant" crap, and whatever else.
... and GraphenOS isn't exactly a fork, but it's plugging away, fighting the good fight, doing things like making Google Play Services both optional and a lot less privileged on the phone than it thinks it is.
Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages
#108These big tech companies are so frustrating. Why does every single aspect of our digital lives need to be monitored? It’s like whack a mole trying to get the most basic of privacy.
Because people collectively vote for the ad model over the subscription model.
Were we even given a choice? In most cases, no.
Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
The line is blurry. Google is positioning Gemini not just as an app, but as a OS level feature. The OS can by definition reach into any third-app app to do anything it wants. I'll give some more examples of OS-level features in case it's not clear: copy/paste is an OS-level feature and it is designed to extract arbitrary text or content from third party apps (copy) and insert them into third party apps (paste); scree…
The fact that Google would find it to be convenient for the line to be blurry doesn't mean that anybody looking at it in good faith sees the line as blurry.
But some people in good faith can see the line as blurry. Others perhaps not. It's subjective and opinion-based.
HN people just like to live in their own bubble thinking no other opinion is valid other than their own.
Re: Google can now read your WhatsApp messages
#110I hope the EU sues the shit/existence out of them for exfiltrating private conversations and violating the secrecy of correspondence without explicit consent Tech corporations and their managers are basically data rapists
> for exfiltrating private conversations and violating the secrecy of correspondence without explicit consent
I have bad news for you: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/messaging-and-chat-co...
The EU wants to exfiltrate chats as well.