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Facebook reportedly researching ways to use encrypted WhatsApp messages for ads

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Re: Facebook reportedly researching ways to use encrypted WhatsApp messages for ads

#31

Post by jasonlotito »

paxys wrote: post #29
jonathanlydall wrote: post #15

While from a technology point of view this is very interesting, I would really prefer an option to pay a reasonable subscription fee to have adverts turned off for me. Before Facebook bought WhatsApp it actually used to require a small annual fee, but it was removed. Alas, I fear that as tends be the case with advertising companies, they know that the willing to pay users are the most valuable advert audience, so are…

I keep telling people that YouTube Premium is the most cost effective membership there is, and they look at me like I'm crazy. Since I got it YouTube has become a service I genuinely love.

This. No ads is great, but the big surprise was the ability to download videos on my device and bring it with me when traveling. It's one of those features I didn't know I wanted until I had it, now I can't see myself not having it.

Re: Facebook reportedly researching ways to use encrypted WhatsApp messages for ads

#33

Post by inciampati »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #30

What's that quote again from that early engineer? The smartest, highest paid engineers, and they fucking work on making you view more ads. We're living in an embarrassing era of massively misallocated resources.

This is even more true today, with a decade of research into the ROI of advertising showing that it isn't even making money for those who buy it. What a sad waste of energy and imagination. We can do better.

Re: Facebook reportedly researching ways to use encrypted WhatsApp messages for ads

#34

Post by BuildTheRobots »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #15

While from a technology point of view this is very interesting, I would really prefer an option to pay a reasonable subscription fee to have adverts turned off for me. Before Facebook bought WhatsApp it actually used to require a small annual fee, but it was removed. Alas, I fear that as tends be the case with advertising companies, they know that the willing to pay users are the most valuable advert audience, so are…

If you're on android then NewPipe is fantastic for watching YouTube without adverts, in a hovering window or even just listening to the audio with the screen off.

It does not tie into your YouTube account (so no watch history or recommended vids) which may or may not work for you, but it's a fantastic resource.

Re: Facebook reportedly researching ways to use encrypted WhatsApp messages for ads

#35

Post by kop316 »

This is a dup of:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28053808

From my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28054329

There is a severe misunderstanding of what Homomorphic Encryption is, but how they explain facebook is trying to use it is not how it works.

Re: Facebook reportedly researching ways to use encrypted WhatsApp messages for ads

#36

Post by mrkramer »

Zuckerberg said that they combat spam on WhatsApp not by reading your messages because since they are end to end encrypted they are obviously unable to do it but by analyzing your metadata and your behavior on the service. So I assume the same strategy can be used for ads.

Encryption is not a problem; if I'm not mistaken various security agencies in USA also bet on metadata when strong encryption is in question.

Re: Facebook reportedly researching ways to use encrypted WhatsApp messages for ads

#37

Post by dahfizz »

bovine3dom wrote: post #28
tmcb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but if they can generate meaningful targeted advertising from encrypted data, that would be pretty a strong indicator that the encryption method is not strong enough. Ideally, encrypted data must be indistinguishable from random noise.

As another comment mentioned, they're talking about using a technique that allows you to perform computations on encrypted data, with encrypted results output - the thing doing the computation never sees any decrypted data. So they could target advertisements but, as far as I can tell, they wouldn't be able to know which advertisements were served ... until the phone makes a request to download them, which seems to m…

My understanding is that homomorphic encryption allows one to transform encrypted data, but the data is still encrypted (random noise). i.e:

decrypt(encrypt(x+1)) == decrypt(encrypt(x) +1)

This does not allow you to get any information about X, only perform computations with it. If advertisers are getting information out of encrypted data, that means the encryption is broken.

Re: Facebook reportedly researching ways to use encrypted WhatsApp messages for ads

#38

Post by axiosgunnar »

mrkramer wrote: post #36

Zuckerberg said that they combat spam on WhatsApp not by reading your messages because since they are end to end encrypted they are obviously unable to do it but by analyzing your metadata and your behavior on the service. So I assume the same strategy can be used for ads. Encryption is not a problem; if I'm not mistaken various security agencies in USA also bet on metadata when strong encryption is in question.

Perhaps we consumers should demand E2EE metadata then?

Would such a thing be theoretically feasible?

Or not because it would be like Tor with the entire Internet controlled by the adversary?

Re: Facebook reportedly researching ways to use encrypted WhatsApp messages for ads

#39

Post by hanniabu »

bovine3dom wrote: post #28
tmcb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but if they can generate meaningful targeted advertising from encrypted data, that would be pretty a strong indicator that the encryption method is not strong enough. Ideally, encrypted data must be indistinguishable from random noise.

As another comment mentioned, they're talking about using a technique that allows you to perform computations on encrypted data, with encrypted results output - the thing doing the computation never sees any decrypted data. So they could target advertisements but, as far as I can tell, they wouldn't be able to know which advertisements were served ... until the phone makes a request to download them, which seems to m…

You mean like zk proofs?
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