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If telcos can't do it, senders can switch to Whatsapp when possible. And everybody is able to understand Whatsapp (although the delivery isn't reliable). And th

by tajen 10y ago

If telcos can't do it, senders can switch to Whatsapp when possible. And everybody is able to understand Whatsapp (although the delivery isn't reliable). And that may even give them more information about the profile of the user, and that could be billed by Whatsapp as a service to senders.

bigiain 10y ago
Sure, but at the loss of the ubiquity of people capable of receiving SMS - Googling suggests ~4.5billion mobile devices worldwide, but only ~1billion Whatsapp users (a number high enough to surprise me, but still under 20% of the total potential market for SMS 2FA...) It also introduces yet another 3rd party reliance and avenue for attack - Brazil and Turkey have blocked Whatsapp recently, and India and the UK have discussed it as well. I doubt Id want to rely on my Whatsapp 2FA tokens arriving in China either...
throwaway54665 10y ago
> (although the delivery isn't reliable) What? I've never missed a Whatsapp message. I have missed Skype (useless crap) and SMS (took ages to arrive with good reception, if at all). I'm in Europe though, where telcos are not actively out to screw you.
TorKlingberg 10y ago
Does WhatsApp have any kind of API for sending messages to their users?
- kuschku 10y ago
  Yes, they do. Almost all the newspapers in Germany have WhatsApp newsletters, and you can get TV news as video message every hour via whatsapp, and so on.
  - germanier 10y ago
    They all use third-party service to send those messages through actual WhatsApp clients with real SIM cards (I think each serves around 500 recipients). They also sometimes get blocked by WhatsApp for spamming, loosing customers subscribed to that number. Some examples are https://www.whatsservice.eu/ https://www.whatsservice.eu/ and https://www.whappodo.com/ https://www.whappodo.com/ WhatsApp announced some API for those use cases though.

by tajen 10y ago

bigiain 10y ago

Sure, but at the loss of the ubiquity of people capable of receiving SMS - Googling suggests ~4.5billion mobile devices worldwide, but only ~1billion Whatsapp users (a number high enough to surprise me, but still under 20% of the total potential market for SMS 2FA...) It also introduces yet another 3rd party reliance and avenue for attack - Brazil and Turkey have blocked Whatsapp recently, and India and the UK have discussed it as well. I doubt Id want to rely on my Whatsapp 2FA tokens arriving in China either...

throwaway54665 10y ago

> (although the delivery isn't reliable) What? I've never missed a Whatsapp message. I have missed Skype (useless crap) and SMS (took ages to arrive with good reception, if at all). I'm in Europe though, where telcos are not actively out to screw you.

TorKlingberg 10y ago

Does WhatsApp have any kind of API for sending messages to their users?

kuschku 10y ago
Yes, they do. Almost all the newspapers in Germany have WhatsApp newsletters, and you can get TV news as video message every hour via whatsapp, and so on.
- germanier 10y ago
  They all use third-party service to send those messages through actual WhatsApp clients with real SIM cards (I think each serves around 500 recipients). They also sometimes get blocked by WhatsApp for spamming, loosing customers subscribed to that number. Some examples are https://www.whatsservice.eu/ https://www.whatsservice.eu/ and https://www.whappodo.com/ https://www.whappodo.com/ WhatsApp announced some API for those use cases though.