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Rust at Scale: An Added Layer of Security for WhatsApp

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Re: Rust at Scale: An Added Layer of Security for WhatsApp

#131

Post by conradludgate »

axegon_ wrote: post #122
londons_explore wrote: post #66

> over 3 billion people to message securely each and every day. Whatsapp is a chat application with 3 billion daily active users. For those of you in the US (where Whatsapp is seldom used), this is a fact worth remembering. If you want to build products for the rest of the world, you need to know how those users think and breathe - and for 3 billion of them, Whatsapp is how they talk.

Honestly? That claim seems a bit(read A LOT) exaggerated. I haven't had whatsapp in a decade and none of my friends(scattered all over Europe) or family uses it. Viber used to be a big deal and to an extent still is in some areas of Europe. Personally I think I've talked almost everyone into migrating to Signal.

No one I know in the UK seriously uses signal. If I'm asking for a phone number from a neighbour it's going to be WhatsApp

Re: Rust at Scale: An Added Layer of Security for WhatsApp

#132

Post by jsiepkes »

conradludgate wrote: post #131
axegon_ wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly? That claim seems a bit(read A LOT) exaggerated. I haven't had whatsapp in a decade and none of my friends(scattered all over Europe) or family uses it. Viber used to be a big deal and to an extent still is in some areas of Europe. Personally I think I've talked almost everyone into migrating to Signal.

No one I know in the UK seriously uses signal. If I'm asking for a phone number from a neighbour it's going to be WhatsApp

In the Netherlands Signal is getting traction. I talk to most people via Signal, about 85% of my messages are via Signal. Which includes my parents, and I didn't even put them on Signal.

Re: Rust at Scale: An Added Layer of Security for WhatsApp

#133

Post by DANmode »

jsiepkes wrote: post #132
conradludgate wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one I know in the UK seriously uses signal. If I'm asking for a phone number from a neighbour it's going to be WhatsApp

In the Netherlands Signal is getting traction. I talk to most people via Signal, about 85% of my messages are via Signal. Which includes my parents, and I didn't even put them on Signal.

Yep.

Nontechnical uncle messaging me on Signal was a great signal that Signal was gaining some social traction.

Re: Rust at Scale: An Added Layer of Security for WhatsApp

#134

Post by DANmode »

conradludgate wrote: post #131
axegon_ wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly? That claim seems a bit(read A LOT) exaggerated. I haven't had whatsapp in a decade and none of my friends(scattered all over Europe) or family uses it. Viber used to be a big deal and to an extent still is in some areas of Europe. Personally I think I've talked almost everyone into migrating to Signal.

No one I know in the UK seriously uses signal. If I'm asking for a phone number from a neighbour it's going to be WhatsApp

What part of the UK?

Re: Rust at Scale: An Added Layer of Security for WhatsApp

#135

Post by vlovich123 »

embedding-shape wrote: post #109
vlovich123 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp launched in January of 2009 compared with Facebook Chat which launched in 2008. WhatsApp saw drastically wider adoption among the general populace and paying for “N text messages per month” is precisely what people refer to as paying per message - WhatsApp had unlimited messaging.

Is "Facebook Chat" not the same as "Facebook Messenger", the separate chat client? Because I seem to remember a lot of people using the chat built-in into Facebook (not Messenger) a lot earlier than the standalone app/client, maybe I misrecall. > paying for “N text messages per month” is precisely what people refer to as paying per message Maybe I said it wrong, "N text messages per month" for me means "Pay us 10 EUR…

Facebook chat preceded Messenger which was a rebranding and separating into a standalone app precisely because WhatsApp ate their lunch so bad.

The rates people were paying back then were extortionate - like 60-90% profit margin. When WhatsApp launched, plans were 5-15 euros/month for 100-500 messages with ~0.15 per message for overages. So you might not count the bundle as a per text message, but it really is which you can tell by what happens if you send more than your bundle allowed. Compare that with WhatsApp’s $1/year for unlimited messaging and you start to see the pricing disparity.

Many people were not mostly texting free in 2009. I think you’ve got the timelines mixed up. That started changing towards the mid to late 2010s precisely because of internet-based chat apps on the phone and plummeting data costs making the telco’s SMS pricing plans insane.

Re: Rust at Scale: An Added Layer of Security for WhatsApp

#136

Post by atoav »

londons_explore wrote: post #66

> over 3 billion people to message securely each and every day. Whatsapp is a chat application with 3 billion daily active users. For those of you in the US (where Whatsapp is seldom used), this is a fact worth remembering. If you want to build products for the rest of the world, you need to know how those users think and breathe - and for 3 billion of them, Whatsapp is how they talk.

Yeah and we know it is over 3 billion because security researchers from the university of Vienna could read that in one go from one source ip address without encountering any rate limiting:

"phone number, public keys, timestamps, and, if set to public, about text and profile picture. From these data points, the researchers were able to extract additional information, which allowed them to infer a user's operating system, account age, as well as the number of linked companion devices."

See: https://www.univie.ac.at/en/news/press-room/press-releases/d...

Re: Rust at Scale: An Added Layer of Security for WhatsApp

#137

Post by embedding-shape »

vlovich123 wrote: post #135
embedding-shape wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is "Facebook Chat" not the same as "Facebook Messenger", the separate chat client? Because I seem to remember a lot of people using the chat built-in into Facebook (not Messenger) a lot earlier than the standalone app/client, maybe I misrecall. > paying for “N text messages per month” is precisely what people refer to as paying per message Maybe I said it wrong, "N text messages per month" for me means "Pay us 10 EUR…

Facebook chat preceded Messenger which was a rebranding and separating into a standalone app precisely because WhatsApp ate their lunch so bad. The rates people were paying back then were extortionate - like 60-90% profit margin. When WhatsApp launched, plans were 5-15 euros/month for 100-500 messages with ~0.15 per message for overages. So you might not count the bundle as a per text message, but it really is which…

Let me preface this with that my experience comes from Sweden in the 90s and 00s, and is a correct and truthful lived experience of my life. Seemingly, things were different were you lived, and that's fine, but that's not how it worked all across Europe, so at least we can agree on that :)

The initial claim of "WhatsApp happened at a time when, in Europe, you paid for SMS." maybe was true in parts of Europe, but clearly not everywhere. People were mostly using the Facebook chat (not Facebook Messenger/Chat) already before Whatsapp started being used, although Whatsapp in Sweden still isn't as popular as in other countries. In Spain, everyone uses Whatsapp, in Sweden, seemingly the people I talk to only have Whatsapp to communicate with me and others outside the country.

> Many people were not mostly texting free in 2009

Most people I knew definitively were mostly texting for free even before 2009, again, at least in Sweden.

Re: Rust at Scale: An Added Layer of Security for WhatsApp

#138

Post by morpheuskafka »

jraph wrote: post #71
londons_explore wrote: post #66

> over 3 billion people to message securely each and every day. Whatsapp is a chat application with 3 billion daily active users. For those of you in the US (where Whatsapp is seldom used), this is a fact worth remembering. If you want to build products for the rest of the world, you need to know how those users think and breathe - and for 3 billion of them, Whatsapp is how they talk.

What one should do about this? I mean, beside working on lowering that number. (Asking as a European who quite stubbornly refuses to install it - there are dozens of us. Dozens!) Edit: please don't participate in making WhatsApp even more inescapable as it is today.

Well, you now have the right to use third-party apps to exchange messages with WhatsApp users, but apparently your law only covers it if the other user is in the EEA. So you are back to square one when communicating with India, Pakistan, and much of SE Asia, Africa, and MENA.

Re: Rust at Scale: An Added Layer of Security for WhatsApp

#139

Post by morpheuskafka »

harikb wrote: post #80
jraph wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What one should do about this? I mean, beside working on lowering that number. (Asking as a European who quite stubbornly refuses to install it - there are dozens of us. Dozens!) Edit: please don't participate in making WhatsApp even more inescapable as it is today.

As a developer, I tried building an app that needs to use Whatsapp for communication. Unfortunately my phone number got blocked by the second test message. No Spam. Not marketing, just a test message to my own number. Along with it, they blocked my entire business, my LLC, and anything tied to it. I have been trying to get hold of anyone or anything at Whatsapp. I've spent 6 months trying to navigate the bureaucracy.…

The number is only checked at login, and after that you can now create a WebAuthn passkey (iCloud Keychain/Google Passwords synced to your next phone) for future sign-ins so it's actually only needed for first sign up. So just get a prepaid SIM or eSIM and make another account unless your business is so large that tons of people know your number.

Re: Rust at Scale: An Added Layer of Security for WhatsApp

#140

Post by morpheuskafka »

duskwuff wrote: post #104
rvnx wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram API is easier to handle as far as I know if that can somehow help (in case you want live ChatGPT or notifications for yourself in a mobile chat)

Telegram's bot API is a lot easier to get started with for sure. It's got some rough edges once you start trying to do anything more complex, though, and the underlying MTProto API is nothing short of bizarre. I'd urge caution before using them as a component of your business, though. Their business strategy is pretty chaotic and has relied heavily on weird cryptocurrency-adjacent plays (e.g. TON / Fragment / gifts).…

Yeah, which is ironic given that it is not E2EE (unless specifically opted in for a private chat, and even then some would argue the MTProto crypto isn't good enough, although those people wouldn't trust WhatsApp ether). WhatsApp is overwhelming associated with legitimate (though in many countries, primarily overseas) users, and Telegram is somewhat associated with shady activities.

That said, Telegram is likely a lot more open for a business type that is legal but still regulated or illegal in some countries (legalized/unregulated substances, tobacco/e-cigarettes, adult content, etc.), probably less worried of random bans/demonetization.

Despite not being E2EE, Telegram also seems to have higher usage in censored countries (Russia and Iran etc). Once a Russian guy in Korea randomly asked if I had Telegram wanting me to take a picture for him since his phone was dead -- obviously had no idea that sounded like a massive scam flag to most Western users.

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