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WhatsApp Messaging Interoperability

developers.facebook.com

71–80 of 152 posts

Re: WhatsApp Messaging Interoperability

#71
post #65

Gosh, all of this is so locked down. I've been waiting for this, and hoping I could "just" cook up some of my own code to use with WhatsApp, and/or integrate it with Pidgin or bridge to email or whatever. But the entire process is about as hostile as possible. For example "Partner shall have in place a dedicated security team" basically excludes most startups, or most smaller companies. It's not clear to me if this i…

You seem to be confusing interoperability with WA’s desires to make sure that e2e encryption isn’t broken.

What’s the point of thinking that WhatsApp is e2ee if anyone can write their own end point?

my friends and I use WhatsApp because we know the messages are secure. Imagine if every other group message had the “green bubble” equivalent experience if someone was using a custom client.

Re: WhatsApp Messaging Interoperability

#72
post #5

There's something really appalling that I discovered lately and I can't believe there isn't enough uproar about it. Every attempt to talk about this gets ignored or buried (maybe by people who want this ""feature"" to be kept quiet) so I will take every opportunity on existing discussions about Facebook to bring it up: Facebook (and TikTok) store tracking data on iOS that the user CANNOT SEE and CANNOT DELETE: • It s…

Hey I can shed light on this. It’s the iCloud keychain. Disabling the keychain doesn’t delete existing entries. There is no way to modify the keychain on iOS (you can on Mac). Lots of apps store sign on data in the keychain for obvious reasons. It would be really great to have a keychain section in iOS’s settings, like Keychain Access on Mac. The dev can build in-app functionality to delete keys from the keychain, bu…

It's not specific to iCloud Keychain--it applies to on-device Keychain on iOS devices, too, even if you don't use iCloud. Any developer can store data there with no way for the user to know or see what it's saving, and it's shared among all apps from the same developer. Keychain is quite a misnomer here--it's really "store any (short) data you want on a user's device without them ever being able to see or remove it". It transfers when you restore backups on new devices, too, even if you haven't had the developer's apps installed in the last decade.

This is an issue because if you ever use an app by a company, uninstall all their apps, and then install one of the developer's apps years later, they can tell it's the same iOS profile (even restored on a different device), profile what you do across those apps/installs/decades, and associate any accounts you log in with. Essentially they can put a permanent cookie that you can't even see on your iOS profile that's shared between their apps. If you use iCloud Keychain, they can probably profile you across all your devices regardless of whether you reset one.

Apple has said this isn't intended functionality and they were going to address the issue many years ago in iOS 10.3 by removing Keychain data when the last app from a developer was uninstalled [1], but they got cold feet. If I recall correctly, the reason was that some app developers were relying on this unintended functionality to ensure free trials couldn't be used more than once. Apple was going to introduce a service that could store only 2 bits of data to enable that use case and then revisit Keychain deletion when the last app from a developer is uninstalled, but it appears they haven't.

It would be great if they'd finally fix this.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/72271

Re: WhatsApp Messaging Interoperability

#73

The most hilarious part: "Partner represents and warrants that it shall not introduce into WhatsApp’s Systems or Infrastructure, the Sublicensed Encryption Software, or otherwise make accessible to WhatsApp any viruses or any software licensed under the General Public Licence or any similar licence (e.g. GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL), GNU General Public License (GPL), GNU Lesser General Public License (LGP…

[deleted]

Re: WhatsApp Messaging Interoperability

#74
post #2

Why do all Meta websites intentionally break the back button? It makes me irrationally angry every time I visit facebook or instagram for how disrespectful it is, it's like it springs a trap where I'm not allowed to leave in the browser tab I arrived in.

[deleted]

Re: WhatsApp Messaging Interoperability

#75
post #2

Why do all Meta websites intentionally break the back button? It makes me irrationally angry every time I visit facebook or instagram for how disrespectful it is, it's like it springs a trap where I'm not allowed to leave in the browser tab I arrived in.

Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: WhatsApp Messaging Interoperability

#76
post #36

> 7.5.1. Partner User Location. Any Partner Users that Partner Enlists or provides access to the Interoperable Messaging Services must be located and remain in the EEA. Without limiting Section 11 (Warranties), Partner represents and warrants that it will only (i) Enlist and (ii) enable access to the Interoperable Messaging Services by Partner Users that Partner independently validates are located in the European Eco…

And that they are reluctantly complying in bad faith in the most hostile way they found. Is this going to fly? Where do these 60 days come from for instance? How is it any useful and who is going to want to implement such interoperability under such terms? This reads like a lot of words to say Fuck You Europe to me. Well, feelings are mutual, at least we are on the same page, them and me.

It seems all companies complying with EU laws (Meta and Apple) spent most resources on lawyers and accountants. To make this unattractive to users and competitors.

Without additional regulations across the globe it’ll be simpler playing the geofencing game for those companies.

Re: WhatsApp Messaging Interoperability

#77
post #66

The most hilarious part: "Partner represents and warrants that it shall not introduce into WhatsApp’s Systems or Infrastructure, the Sublicensed Encryption Software, or otherwise make accessible to WhatsApp any viruses or any software licensed under the General Public Licence or any similar licence (e.g. GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL), GNU General Public License (GPL), GNU Lesser General Public License (LGP…

That entire section 6 is weird; because 6.1 talks about gaining access to WhatsApp's "systems, networks, databases, computers, or other information systems owned", and then 6.2 is the bit you quoted that talks about copyleft. But ... it's not like WhatsApp is hiring me as a sysadmin for their servers, are they? Why would they give me access to their systems? They won't. This seems copy/paste legalese.

> But ... it's not like WhatsApp is hiring me as a sysadmin for their servers, are they? Why would they give me access to their systems? They won't. This seems copy/paste legalese.

"Access" in this case just means "ability to interact with". It doesn't imply root/admin abilities.

Re: WhatsApp Messaging Interoperability

#78
post #65

Gosh, all of this is so locked down. I've been waiting for this, and hoping I could "just" cook up some of my own code to use with WhatsApp, and/or integrate it with Pidgin or bridge to email or whatever. But the entire process is about as hostile as possible. For example "Partner shall have in place a dedicated security team" basically excludes most startups, or most smaller companies. It's not clear to me if this i…

You seem to be confusing interoperability with WA’s desires to make sure that e2e encryption isn’t broken. What’s the point of thinking that WhatsApp is e2ee if anyone can write their own end point? my friends and I use WhatsApp because we know the messages are secure. Imagine if every other group message had the “green bubble” equivalent experience if someone was using a custom client.

You can do E2E encryption without all of these requirements. It's basically just TOFU some key when someone messages you. You can do 3rd-party implementation for other E2E messengers: Telegram, Signal (even though they don't like it), and of course XMPP (with extension).

I need to read a bit more carefully through the (limited) technical documentation they have; but all of this seems highly excessive. I'm not a distrustful or cynical person by nature, but I find it hard to avoid the impression that they intentionally made it as hard as possible.

I don't know what "the green bubble experience" means(?)

Re: WhatsApp Messaging Interoperability

#79
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that they are reluctantly complying in bad faith in the most hostile way they found. Is this going to fly? Where do these 60 days come from for instance? How is it any useful and who is going to want to implement such interoperability under such terms? This reads like a lot of words to say Fuck You Europe to me. Well, feelings are mutual, at least we are on the same page, them and me.

You may dislike it, but EU law only applies in the EU; it sounds like full compliance to me, not "bad faith" compliance. Messaging-interoperability is the one aspect of the DMA I don't support. These apps are free to download; and if you care about security (and use Signal) you'll want to avoid cross-service messaging anyway.

[deleted]

Re: WhatsApp Messaging Interoperability

#80

> 7.5.1. Partner User Location. Any Partner Users that Partner Enlists or provides access to the Interoperable Messaging Services must be located and remain in the EEA. Without limiting Section 11 (Warranties), Partner represents and warrants that it will only (i) Enlist and (ii) enable access to the Interoperable Messaging Services by Partner Users that Partner independently validates are located in the European Eco…

This is so absurd.

I think the previously often raised objections to interoperability were technically and economically mostly sound (federation is much harder to achieve in a secure way, thinking of key distribution, identifier verification etc.).

Now overcoming all of these obstacles and then going the extra mile to implement geofencing (which also has tons of edge cases!) completely undoes that argument.

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