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WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

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Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#601

Post by dan-robertson »

dessant wrote: post #528
submeta wrote: post #467

I am in the EU, and this is what I have been presented with: „ By tapping Agree, you accept the new terms, which take effect on February 8, 2021. After this date, you’ll need to accept the new terms to continue using WhatsApp. You can also visit the Help Center if you would prefer to delete your account and would like more information. To learn more about how WhatsApp processes your data, read our updated privacy pol…

Our quest to fully convert to Signal has hit a major wall, Android tablets are not supported as linked devices. Supporting tablets would allow us to chat and send files across devices, without resorting to apps like Messenger.

Can you run the web interface to signal in the tablet’s web browser? I thought basically no one used android tablets anyway

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#602

Post by rusk »

bitcharmer wrote: post #566
codegladiator wrote: post #532

Is there a possibility that we (us at hn, pro-privacy) are all just paranoid and the worst case scenarios we can imagine are never really going to happen ? I am a heavy advocate of privacy and the main driving factor for these conversations in my friend/family circle. Trying to get people to a different platform since 2 years now (they did and came back), so now I wonder if I am just wasting time really for a apocaly…

The worst case scenario has been happening for years. Didn't Snowden teach us about how these platforms are a gold mine for shady government agencies and oppressive regimes?

And let’s not forget organised crime. It’s not beyond reason that some of the larger organisations could get their fingers into this.

I think in Europe we are more aware of these issues because shady organisations in the past have been able to get their hands on government files and use them for nefarious purposes.

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#604

Post by silasdavis »

As others have mentioned increasingly small businesses (like my outdoor exercise class) and loose communities (like my child's school year parent's group) rely on WhatsApp. persuading these loose connections to move away from WhatsApp for one's own benefit is almost impossible.

Sacrificing access to these social amenities on the altar of incremental privacy invasion and power transfer to an unaccountable basically malign organisation is hard to stomach. And rather inconsequential taken in isolation.

What technical and legislative means might be effective in limiting the network effect around group chats? For example requiring in law that groups be accessible to an open federated hub and spoke messaging protocol to allow messages to flow from syndicated groups established on other systems (like matrix or signal or whatever) to WhatsApp groups.

What technical and legal prior art is there here? I would be interested to hear some ideas.

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#605

Post by jraby3 »

teekert wrote: post #578

WA is so deeply ingrained in the Dutch society, we even have this all over the place: [0] At this point it's just a lost cause. I have some friends on Signal and use NextCloud talk (my own server, yay, still waiting for federated chat to chat to other servers), but so many "official" things are on WA, children's birthday parties, school announcements, sports related announcements, neighborhood announcements. We are r…

Same here in Israel.

Messages from daycare, zoom class info for kids, alerts, are all connected to WhatsApp.

There is no way to avoid using it. Wish there was something I could do.

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#606

Post by sufehmi »

cranekam wrote: post #529
pojzon wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their infra is generating those encryption certificates, so WhatsApp can very well decode the message and store it for further processing. They will most likely share metadata about you with facebook to sell that data to push more ads into your face. They may very well sell also data to insurance companies making it harder for you to get insurance. Options are limited only by who would like to pay for info about you.…

> Their infra is generating those encryption certificates, so WhatsApp can very well decode the message and store it for further processing. This is incorrect. The sender's device generates the key with which it encrypts outgoing messages. WhatsApp's infra cannot see the content of any messages sent. (Source: ex-WhatsApp employee)

3 years ago, my friend, an Indian fact-checker, showed me a screenshot of a WhatsApp screen, showing warning from WhatsApp that a message contains a dangerous link

This (the warning) is only possible if WhatsApp can read your messages

I'm guessing that they read your message on the app. So their claim (end-to-end encryption) is indeed true and correct.

But their app can and indeed has been reading your messages, for the past, at least, 3 years

Which I personally don't mind, when it's done fully automatically (no humans involved) and only for this kind of uses (to warn users of dangers)

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#607

Post by lrvick »

johnchristopher wrote: post #589
lrvick wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are going to move from one centralized, walled garden, privacy hostile platform that hard requires Google/Apple ecosystems to get signed updates... to another with identical drawbacks. I suggest something that lets you use any client/platform you want, uses the same crypto primitives, and lets you choose what server/country your data is hosted in and change your mind any time, e.g Matrix. How many times do cen…

> I suggest something that lets you use any client/platform you want, uses the same crypto primitives, and lets you choose what server/country your data is hosted in and change your mind any time, e.g Matrix. I'll bite. Who's paying for my johnchristopher@whatever.tld and for the data (avatar pictures, transfered files, chat logs) associated with it ? Will the Matrix foundation let me use their services forever and f…

You can think of it like email.

Maybe you started on AOL and later realized AOL is terrible. You could export your address book and move to a client/server you trust more and notify all your contacts from the new location.

This is the same story on Matrix and what I mean when I say it is a freedom respecting decentralized service.

You are also free to run your own DNS to a dedicated EMS instance then later point to your own self hosted server later much like the freedom you have using your own domain and MX records on Google Apps allowing you to later move to a new email provider without having to update your social graph to change your address.

On Signal, there is no such option. You use their clients and servers forever, or GTFO.

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#608

Post by gilloh »

cranekam wrote: post #529
pojzon wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their infra is generating those encryption certificates, so WhatsApp can very well decode the message and store it for further processing. They will most likely share metadata about you with facebook to sell that data to push more ads into your face. They may very well sell also data to insurance companies making it harder for you to get insurance. Options are limited only by who would like to pay for info about you.…

> Their infra is generating those encryption certificates, so WhatsApp can very well decode the message and store it for further processing. This is incorrect. The sender's device generates the key with which it encrypts outgoing messages. WhatsApp's infra cannot see the content of any messages sent. (Source: ex-WhatsApp employee)

How can you guarantee this? And how about received messages? How can you retrieve all your old messages/conversations when you install the app on a new device? Don't they come from WhatsApp servers? Just curious, not doubting that you are actually an ex-WhatsApp employee.

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#609

Post by blackbrokkoli »

codegladiator wrote: post #532

Is there a possibility that we (us at hn, pro-privacy) are all just paranoid and the worst case scenarios we can imagine are never really going to happen ? I am a heavy advocate of privacy and the main driving factor for these conversations in my friend/family circle. Trying to get people to a different platform since 2 years now (they did and came back), so now I wonder if I am just wasting time really for a apocaly…

I mean the advent of business computing was very literally the systematic eradication of 6 million Jews.

IBM's custom designed punch cards and the absolute openness of census records (church books are rarely encrypted) was the only reason the third Reich was ever able to census all European Jews and then systematically deport them in any reasonable time frame.

That is obviously very different from new WhatsApp TOS, but this incredibly prevalent opinion of "Well, nothing really bad regarding privacy and tech did actually happen, right?" irks me a lot.

Re: WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app

#610

Post by teekert »

jraby3 wrote: post #605
teekert wrote: post #578

WA is so deeply ingrained in the Dutch society, we even have this all over the place: [0] At this point it's just a lost cause. I have some friends on Signal and use NextCloud talk (my own server, yay, still waiting for federated chat to chat to other servers), but so many "official" things are on WA, children's birthday parties, school announcements, sports related announcements, neighborhood announcements. We are r…

Same here in Israel. Messages from daycare, zoom class info for kids, alerts, are all connected to WhatsApp. There is no way to avoid using it. Wish there was something I could do.

Yeah, I do hope the EU (and your government) do(es) something about this, I feel betrayed because WA became dominant here under very different terms and conditions.

FB: "Yeah we are just going to buy this platform with a privacy focus that everybody loves and grew dependent on and turn it into FaceBook." I don't even understand how that is legal.

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