WhatsApp gives users an ultimatum: Share data with Facebook or stop using app • Hacker News Board

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

#971

Post by secfirstmd » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

Aachen wrote: post #731

lrvick wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal will by design likely be more stable than Matrix in the short term because it is a centralized dictatorship. China can move fast for this reason too. You have to decide if the long term consequences of a fast moving dictatorship are worth giving up the freedom of a sometimes messy democracy. The internet is too important to herd all our services into control of dictators, no matter how benevolent. We survived…

That's what they want you to believe for some reason. Moxie went so far as to talk in the biggest hall at the last chaos communication congress about how important it is that we don't use decentralized services and clients. I'm not buying it. Look at Matrix and tell me it's holding them back. What's holding them back, perhaps, is not having a shitton of money in the bank like Signal, and they're actively supportive o…

Signal did not have a shit ton of money until a year or two ago. I like Matrix but it's main issue is still UI/UX on clients (especially around key management) - which is slowly getting better but still too complex for normal non-techie users.

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

#972

Post by hiq » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

Aachen wrote: post #670

chalst wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like Signal's stance on forks (which is that they are allowed but may not use the official Signal network) but it hardly has identical drawbacks. Signal is open source, can be downloaded as an official APK and can be run on LineageOS without Google Play (notifications do require some emulation of Play Services calls, but that can be provided using MicroG).

"hardly has drawbacks" My notes on Signal contain the following: + It usually just works + Reasonable desktop experience (needs to re-link once a month or so, but otherwise independent and not terrible UX), good mobile experience - Metadata handled by Amazon - Phone number is a hard requirement, and changing your phone number means re-connecting to everyone - Funding comes from Facebook from what I recall, and even w…

> - Metadata handled by Amazon

That's rather broad, which metadata are you thinking about? Especially given the sealed sender feature. Assuming you have access to everything at Amazon, what can you deduce about Signal users?

I can think of:

- IP address (you can tell that this IP address sent some Signal message)

- size of messages

- timestamps of messages (when they were received by an Amazon server)

IP address leaks a lot of information but there are still workarounds, and it seems reasonable if you're in a no-trust model (meaning Signal's servers wouldn't be any better than Amazon's). In any case, that's way less information than other mainstream messengers.

On the other hand, one distinguishing feature regarding metadata is groups: group membership is not known by anyone outside of the group if I understand correctly, contrary to WhatsApp (and others).

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

#973

Post by eproxus » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

72deluxe wrote: post #845

mrweasel wrote: post #787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think iMessage took off, because you don't realise it's not SMS. Open the Messages app, type a message, if there's an iDevice in the other end, BOOM, iMessage. Where iMessage fails is when the device in the other end isn't an Apple device, or perhaps the contact previously used an iPhone, then fallback to SMS is troublesome. Most of my familymembers will send an "SMS"... except it's via iMessage, but nobody knows o…

I have this problem. I use an Android phone, but have a Mac and iPad. My mum has no idea how to send an SMS to me so will send me messages on iMessage that I don't see for weeks because I haven't used the iPad or Mac (been working on Windows for a while writing code). Infuriating.

I'm in the opposite situation. A friend has iMessage on the computer but just SMS on the phone. There's no way to force send an SMS on iOS anymore. All the guides I've found just mention the "Resend failed message as SMS" but messages never fail, they're just queued on the computer.

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

#974

Post by hiq » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

Aachen wrote: post #731

lrvick wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal will by design likely be more stable than Matrix in the short term because it is a centralized dictatorship. China can move fast for this reason too. You have to decide if the long term consequences of a fast moving dictatorship are worth giving up the freedom of a sometimes messy democracy. The internet is too important to herd all our services into control of dictators, no matter how benevolent. We survived…

That's what they want you to believe for some reason. Moxie went so far as to talk in the biggest hall at the last chaos communication congress about how important it is that we don't use decentralized services and clients. I'm not buying it. Look at Matrix and tell me it's holding them back. What's holding them back, perhaps, is not having a shitton of money in the bank like Signal, and they're actively supportive o…

> I'm not buying it. Look at Matrix and tell me it's holding them back.

The main argument against federated protocols playing well with security is that they have a harder time evolving. The example always given is email. Once Matrix has reached 500M users and several server implementations with less than 20% market share each, how can you be sure that it will keep improving contrary to email protocols? WhatsApp switched to E2EE in a matter of months, but most of our emails are still plaintext on the servers.

I like and use Matrix as a replacement for IRC, but I don't think they will catch up in terms of security with Signal in most practical situations (meaning, I want to send a message to a non-technical person). Both because of the fossilization associated with federated protocol (see above), and simply because developing a federated protocol is way harder and less forgiving than a centralized one.

Your argument about the "99% use" means that first that you don't need centralization if it's already centralized in practice, and second that it brings very little benefit (benefits only 1% of users). At that point, the (possibly low) costs of decentralization are not worth it.

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

#975

Post by vlsbr » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

EU citizen here. Not a lawyer so correct me if I'm wrong. :)

WhatsApp uses "privacy shield"[0] to allow it to flow data from the EU to the US.

However, privacy shield was rejected by the European Court of Justice on 16 July 2020 (Schrems II) [1] so we're back to "standard contractual clauses" [2].

There's currently no alternative to Privacy Shield.

[0] https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/privacy-shield/?lang=en

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU%E2%80%93US_Privacy_Shield#L...

[2] https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/inte...

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

#976

Post by vin047 » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

edeion wrote: post #742

tdubhro1 wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also in the UK and I deleted WhatsApp 2 years ago when it became clear that Facebook intended to move in the direction of fuller integration (I deleted my Facebook account after 1 month of usage 10 years ago). However, I had to reinstall WhatsApp because all of my kid's sports activities and school updates are organised through WhatsApp groups and it is impossible to participate without WhatsApp. Much as I believ…

My experience is similar. I want to add that when I left WhatsApp (~2y ago) I deleted my account. WhatsApp kept accepting messages on my behalf. People didn't know I wasn't getting their messages. I'm surprised I don't see this mentioned to the point I wonder if I did something wrong at the time. In the end, I reopened a WhatsApp account recently because everyone is using WhatsApp in France and I couldn't stand break…

> WhatsApp kept accepting messages on my behalf. People didn't know I wasn't getting their messages.

As an FYI to you and anyone reading this, you can convert your account to a business account using WhatsApp for Business. It has an auto-reply feature that you can enable with a custom message, to inform people you've moved to whatever platform you've decided to move to.

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

#977

Post by Bit32 » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #754

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used Signal for years, and for most of that time only had about three people who also used it in my contacts. My wife recently got her entire extended family to use Signal. She has always refused to use WhatsApp. They all love Signal now, and use it all the time. However, this was during a family crisis. During the Covid lockdowns, many companies I know used Signal as their preferred non corporate communication…

See elsewhere in this discussion why Signal is not much better: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25668547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25669657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25668659

Er, The third link doesn't even support your argument and the first two links are written by the same author.

-

Signal IS much better.

It's a nonprofit, not a commerical company.

There are arguments for and against centralized systems and forks of apps. The lead dev of Signal is concerned about interoperability; but still leaves users the option of doing things the way they would like with the open source code; it's just not 'supported™'

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

#978

Post by Bit32 » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

perryizgr8 wrote: post #308

frereubu wrote: post #22

I'd love to give up WhatsApp, but network effects are key here. I tried moving my extended family off WhatsApp onto Signal a couple of years ago and it failed miserably because the app wasn't nearly as easy to use, and they had all their friends on Whatsapp. Has anyone here had any success moving a large group of people onto something like Signal or Telegram? If so, do you have any tips?

How's signal different? It's also in the same position as whatsapp was a few years ago. For the time being it may be better, but surely it is not a long-term alternative?

> signal

Amongst many, many other factors, it's a nonprofit foundation, not a commercial company.

Long term, it has backing from people (like the original founders of Whatsapp) who want to see an open solution flourish. Plus people can donate.

Also, both the client and server are open source.

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

#979

Post by wdb » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

helmholtz wrote: post #693

kar1181 wrote: post #677

It's harder for US folks to understand just how much of a monopoly WhatsApp has in Europe and the UK. Pretty much all of our school and local community communication happens via WhatsApp. I'd change to Signal or Telegram in a heartbeat, but the inertia is so great it's not possible. It pains me to say, but we're getting to the point where companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google need to be treated like utilities o…

I'm in Europe, and I'm doing it to the best extent that I can: no permissions allowed to whatsapp, no profile picture, no read receipts, no notifications, sending a standard message to all personal groups that 'lads, I'm moving to signal, ciao'. Beyond that, I will not entertain personal messages on whatsapp, only work related. Each new person will be greeted with "Do you mind awfully if we use Signal?" Does this com…

What when other new person suggests Telegram? I have like four different messaging apps on my phone: WhatsApp, Telegram, Wechat and Link. Don’t need one more random app lol

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

#980

Post by randomsearch » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 10:23 PM UTC

kar1181 wrote: post #677

It's harder for US folks to understand just how much of a monopoly WhatsApp has in Europe and the UK. Pretty much all of our school and local community communication happens via WhatsApp. I'd change to Signal or Telegram in a heartbeat, but the inertia is so great it's not possible. It pains me to say, but we're getting to the point where companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google need to be treated like utilities o…

Just an obvious point - you don’t have to “change”. You can install both and use signal as much as you can. This costs you almost nothing, maybe just a little app switching. Not much to pay for a better world.