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WhatsApp goes down for users globally
21–30 of 234 posts
Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally
#22Seems like a good time to plug Session: https://getsession.org/ Open source, doesn't require a phone number, and a big strength is that it's decentralized, which makes it much less vulnerable to outages like this. "Session utilises the decentralised Oxen Service Node Network to store and route messages. This means that unlike P2P messaging applications you can message Session users when they are offline. This network…
I supposed it's a Matrix client, but couldn't find anything by glancing the home page. Btw, the whole idea of "no phone numbers" makes it really hard to spread. It basically means you can't send a message to anyone in your address book that already has Session installed, unless you get his Session username by other means.
That's a good thing.
Forcing people to give their phone number to use an instant messaging app/protocol is a sign the company just wants your private data.
Also, by doing that and letting the account existence be publicly known, anyone with their phone number will know that they have an account on that service and lets you try to contact them. That can range from privacy violation to life-in-danger situations.
Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally
#23https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33327320
That one should be on the front page.
Disagree completely. I’d much rather have a link to a trustworthy source than a random person writing “Tell HN: WhatsApp is down”. The post you think should be frontpage is useless imo. Take the time to link to a source instead of trying to beat everyone to the punch to get a little karma.
Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally
#24Seems like a good time to plug Session: https://getsession.org/ Open source, doesn't require a phone number, and a big strength is that it's decentralized, which makes it much less vulnerable to outages like this. "Session utilises the decentralised Oxen Service Node Network to store and route messages. This means that unlike P2P messaging applications you can message Session users when they are offline. This network…
I supposed it's a Matrix client, but couldn't find anything by glancing the home page. Btw, the whole idea of "no phone numbers" makes it really hard to spread. It basically means you can't send a message to anyone in your address book that already has Session installed, unless you get his Session username by other means.
It is not a matrix client. I haven't dug too deep into their system, but it looks to me like a centralized server with additional steps (ie. still a single entity owning the server infrastructure)
Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I supposed it's a Matrix client, but couldn't find anything by glancing the home page. Btw, the whole idea of "no phone numbers" makes it really hard to spread. It basically means you can't send a message to anyone in your address book that already has Session installed, unless you get his Session username by other means.
That's a good thing. Forcing people to give their phone number to use an instant messaging app/protocol is a sign the company just wants your private data. Also, by doing that and letting the account existence be publicly known, anyone with their phone number will know that they have an account on that service and lets you try to contact them. That can range from privacy violation to life-in-danger situations.
I adamantly refuse to register for accounts that require my phone number unless it's for commercial or official purposes. The likes of Google, Facebook and Microsoft can go take a long walk off a short plank.
We give too much information away. Companies have shown that they are incapable of keeping the information private anyway. We get big scandals, the interwebs kick up a big stink, brows are furrowed, and then we go back to doing what we did before with nobody learning anything.
Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally
#26Time to talk about matrix.org and Element not Signal and definitely not Telegram...
Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally
#27Time to talk about matrix.org and Element not Signal and definitely not Telegram...
Why not Telegram, it has by far the best UX of all chat apps.
Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally
#28Thankfully there is still email, which never went down globally
Email is slowly becoming centralised unfortunately as small providers are pushed out by big companies. So it won't be long until we have global email outages.
Ham radio operators practice disaster ops, don't they ? How about indie email providers ?
Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally
#29I don’t think there’s a status page for WhatsApp, but Meta has this for the business side of things: https://metastatus.com/whatsapp-business-api
Re: WhatsApp goes down for users globally
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I supposed it's a Matrix client, but couldn't find anything by glancing the home page. Btw, the whole idea of "no phone numbers" makes it really hard to spread. It basically means you can't send a message to anyone in your address book that already has Session installed, unless you get his Session username by other means.
That's a good thing. Forcing people to give their phone number to use an instant messaging app/protocol is a sign the company just wants your private data. Also, by doing that and letting the account existence be publicly known, anyone with their phone number will know that they have an account on that service and lets you try to contact them. That can range from privacy violation to life-in-danger situations.
I find phone numbers awesome because you actually "own" them to some degree. (i.e. you can take your number to a new provider). Moving to a different messenger app with the same phone number means I can at least still find some of my network there. Only email on your own domain would have that feature.
I don't really care if they sell my phone number, it's already out there, I don't consider it private data anymore.