Live data from Hacker News

Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

dw.com

51–60 of 262 posts

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#51

From my experience a lot of people will not hesitate to contact you via WhatsApp even in a professional setting if they can get hold of your phone number. After this happened several times to me I made sure to have a separate phone for business where no messengers or any "social" apps are installed. The funny side of this behavior is your client messaging you via WhatsApp but forgetting their profile picture shows th…

I’ve never understood the appeal of WhatsApp: it requires a phone number (so it’s useless or hard to setup abroad, and it’s tied to a very personal data), handle very poorly wifi connection (somehow it seems to only update when connected over 4G) and force me to download pictures and videos to see them, trashing my photo folder in the process. It also has no killer features in comparison to any existing messaging app…

It's "killer feature" is that it's just another messaging app that only requires a phone number. I don't want to add people to yet another proprietary network.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#54
post #39

From personal experience, I can tell you that the consequence of this will be that ministries will be using unencrypted and unauthenticated email and SMS.

Or not. Landesregierung BaWü for example distributes the daily COVID-19 news via Threema.

I didn't say this will always be the consequence, but it will be the typical result.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#55

From my experience a lot of people will not hesitate to contact you via WhatsApp even in a professional setting if they can get hold of your phone number. After this happened several times to me I made sure to have a separate phone for business where no messengers or any "social" apps are installed. The funny side of this behavior is your client messaging you via WhatsApp but forgetting their profile picture shows th…

I’ve never understood the appeal of WhatsApp: it requires a phone number (so it’s useless or hard to setup abroad, and it’s tied to a very personal data), handle very poorly wifi connection (somehow it seems to only update when connected over 4G) and force me to download pictures and videos to see them, trashing my photo folder in the process. It also has no killer features in comparison to any existing messaging app…

Whatsapp's killer feature was reliability, 10 years ago. It simply had better message delivery.

Now most apps are pretty much equally good but the network effect already did its job.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#56

Generally I'm for stronger data protection, but German officials relationship to WhatsApp is a bit silly, I always wonder what their conrete worry or attack scenario is. That a rouge employee at WhatsApp can see your metadata or access your telefone book? That the US government can see your metadata? Criminal and state actors have access to most of that information anyway.

WhatsApp is a proprietary app and Facebook did plan to implement client-side agents that would extract info from content, or blacklist it. This means Facebook has the capability of backdooring WhatsApp and by extension the US government has this capability. This isn't just about the metadata, you would be naive to think so. Proprietary apps, especially those that get automatically updated, will always have this looph…

> WhatsApp is a proprietary app and Facebook did plan to implement client-side agents that would extract info from content, or blacklist it.

This was debunked. Read Schneier’s correction: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/08/more_on_backd...

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#57

Generally I'm for stronger data protection, but German officials relationship to WhatsApp is a bit silly, I always wonder what their conrete worry or attack scenario is. That a rouge employee at WhatsApp can see your metadata or access your telefone book? That the US government can see your metadata? Criminal and state actors have access to most of that information anyway.

> That the US government can see your metadata? Not only metadata but the whole data transmissions. Whatsapp may claim that transmissions are encrypted end-to-end but they control the app itself so can do whatever they want. The app distribution channels are also controlled by American companies. So any government conducting communications through Whatsapp has in effect outsourced its communications to the US. For im…

To add to this point: The US government is not at all trusted in Germany (or most of the EU) at the moment. "America first", combined with numerous withdrawals from international bodies like the WHO and the climate agreements has given the impression that the old allies are no longer beneficial to the European cause.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#58
This is part of a broader problem.

Many "apps" from WhatsApp to Zoom are treated as public spaces by citizens. But, legally the app-space is closer to a private space. This creates a mismatch between reality and expectations. (Zuckerberg can delete his chat history and you could not until Europe passed legislation forcing Facebook to do so.)

I suffered the "Windows only" of gubernamental applications that excluded Linux users from using them. I see a new wave of iPhone/Android apps, WhatsApp/Twitter official accounts, etc. creating the same monopolistic synergy where the government decides what apps the citizens have to install and what Operating Systems to use. The abuse of monopolies is not fight against but government officials take sides and choose which monopolies to grow.

Finally, a point missed in the comments: WhatsApp is an American company. The misalignment between Europe and the USA has grown the recent years meanwhile the technological dependence of Europe towards the USA has increased. That will not end well. The USA is in a position to shutdown all the technological infrastructure of Europe (AWS, Google, Facebook, Azure, ...) and to openly spy its citizens. When the two blocks were in more friendly terms that was seen as acceptable, today that is creating an uneasy feeling.

As an European citizen I do not feel safe with such an American oversight of my private and job-related activities. And, this is the most important point, when citizens feel threatened they will react or over-react to the situation. The USA has not been a trustworthy partner for some time. And ,the rise of TikTok and other Chinese apps are bringing that fear to public attention.

The solution is trivially easy and has existed for long: open standards. Mail has been around as long as the Internet and proven its value, the same applies to the World Wide Web. The only reason for the rise of apps is that companies see them as a good way of lock-in customers, gather data and increase influence. All that reasons are bad for the economy, for the freedom of countries and individuals. Open standards should be pushed as a leveling field for competing companies, as a form to increase freedom of expressions and communication and to avoid single-points-of-faiulre that risk big parts of the economy.

I hope for a return to sanity and open standards. The alternative is heavy regulated monopolies, no government is going to allow this situation to go for long, like the telecommunications industry. And, that does not work so well.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#59
post #26
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> forcing you to create PIN nobody asked for You do realize that user profiles is one of the most requested features, right?

these are not user profiles, this is cloud backup of your contacts and settings if it was trade off that together with PIN I can start using Signal without phone number on devices without SIM I would be much more understanding

Which I assume is a first step towards user profiles. Their development team is small and every feature has to be implemented using state of the art crypto.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#60
There are very good messengers, they are just not pushed by big money and group pressure. The problem is always, that people don't care about what they do (to others) and apply group pressure for the benefit of the company.

matrix.org For professional usage and IRC like chatrooms. Free and open source software, with several native desktop and phone clients. Doesn't require any phone number and offers E2E encryption. You can use the central server or host your own ones and connect everyone through federation. The official app for iOS/Android is getting currently a rewrite because it is chubby. I'm using Fractal happily on Linux as IRC replacement, because it lacks E2E at the moment. Developed by a company which offers support and libraries for development. Therefore you could criticize that there are no RFCs floating around, but looking at XMPP which created a lot of RFCs this is probably quicker and better.

The germany army will use Matrix and also the french government. No joke! The germany army is here an example to follow.

signal.org Also free and open source software, but you won't get your own server and federation. Very easy to use for everyone, hard linked to phone numbers with default E2E encryption always on. Childs can use it. No native desktop clients, only the fat Electron "Flash for the desktop" thing.

The european parliament is using it in future. Probably a wise decision in their case ;)

PS: Facebook claims that WhatsApp uses the E2E of Signal. Nobody can proof that without source code. Nobody is allowed to write own clients for other platforms than iOS and Android. Nobody ever has seen the server code. Haven't we seen enough greedy monopolies since the 80s?

Post reply on HN