Although this feature probably isn't a big concern, I am curious because you can't report without sending "recent" messages to WhatsApp, and "recent" is vague enough to mean "previous 500" or so. Again, probably not an issue since you presumably don't have much message history with someone you are reporting, but a bit of a strange decision from a privacy perspective.
Reporting a user to WhatsApp forwards a copy of recent messages from that chat
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Re: Reporting a user to WhatsApp forwards a copy of recent messages from that chat
#22I hate Facebook and WhatsApp as much as anyone else who cares about privacy.
But there's nothing wrong in this particular change. It happens when you report someone as spam, and you get a clear notification about what's going on.
There's a "cancel" button as big as the "report" button, so you can bail out if you disagree.
Re: Reporting a user to WhatsApp forwards a copy of recent messages from that chat
#23So it can also read the messages of the reported user? Without their permission, other than what is covered in fine print? I understand this can be used to fight abuse but it seems to open up some hard questions for WhatsApp privacy.
I guess it can read the messages by the reported user that the reporting user has received, and chooses to transmit. Which makes sense.
Re: Reporting a user to WhatsApp forwards a copy of recent messages from that chat
#24So it can also read the messages of the reported user? Without their permission, other than what is covered in fine print? I understand this can be used to fight abuse but it seems to open up some hard questions for WhatsApp privacy.
In the same way I can take a screenshot of a conversation with you and post it online without your permission.
Re: Reporting a user to WhatsApp forwards a copy of recent messages from that chat
#25Remember how whatsapp for years didn't let you delete sent messages even if the other person hadn't yet received it? I assume there was some major privacy reason why it worked that way for so long because it was obviously pretty horrible from a user experience standpoint.
Would anyone be able to explain it to me? And what kind of extra data did facebook likely receive from adding that feature (which I think coincided with when the creators started to get very unsettled at Facebook).
Re: Reporting a user to WhatsApp forwards a copy of recent messages from that chat
#26People think end to end encryption is a magic cure for OpSec. It’s not. All end to end encryption does is protect you from eve spying on conversations between Alice and bob. Nothing prevents Bob from doxing/publishing all of Alice’s messages. Edit: it’s true that the signal protocol provides deniability for messages but if Bob publishes Alice’s messages and whatsapp can prove that bob sent and Alice received messages…
It's impossible to prevent Bob from publishing all Alice's messages (barring tech that can forcibly erase them from Bob's brain).
The best you can do is not make it possible for Bob to prove that the messages were not forged (however, this is not necessarily a good thing, and in fact the opposite can often be better).
Re: Reporting a user to WhatsApp forwards a copy of recent messages from that chat
#27Now? This has been happening for years to fight spam. It is not new in any way.
Re: Reporting a user to WhatsApp forwards a copy of recent messages from that chat
#28Just FYI, the Google Drive backup of your "E2E encrypted" whatsapp messages is stored in plain text... https://faq.whatsapp.com/android/chats/about-google-drive-ba...
So it is not only Facebook that has complete access to the message history, but also Google.
The funny thing is that I cannot find a way to access that backup myself, is anyone aware of a method to download that backup as a data dump and inspect it?
Re: Reporting a user to WhatsApp forwards a copy of recent messages from that chat
#29As if they couldn't read everything anyway. Obviously, I have no evidence for making such a claim. What I know is 1. Facebook's reputation with regards to privacy. 2. The fact that they paid 20 billion dollars to buy a product without a monetization model. (Which is 20 times more than they paid for Instagram by the way.) 3. Whatsapp's founder left the company after the acquisition due to privacy concerns. It's enough…
While I share your general suspicion I don't think they need to see the messages to get a lot of privacy-violating use out of WhatsApp.
When the NSA was talking about metadata collection, they said it was more useful than actual data. Likely because it's already computer consumable, and less dense.
If FB gets your contact lists, and sees who you message, how much, and when, that's probably a hugely valuable commodity to them.
Re: Reporting a user to WhatsApp forwards a copy of recent messages from that chat
#30People think end to end encryption is a magic cure for OpSec. It’s not. All end to end encryption does is protect you from eve spying on conversations between Alice and bob. Nothing prevents Bob from doxing/publishing all of Alice’s messages. Edit: it’s true that the signal protocol provides deniability for messages but if Bob publishes Alice’s messages and whatsapp can prove that bob sent and Alice received messages…
E2EE is for communicating with a trusted person without third parties listening in through technological means. Anything else is out of scope. This includes what you mention here, where the person you're communicating with isn't actually trusted.