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> WhatsApp has something like a billion users. Virtually none of them asked for end-to-end encryption. As someone who uses PGP, but doesn't use WhatsApp this i
by yaur 10y ago
> WhatsApp has something like a billion users. Virtually none of them asked for end-to-end encryption.
As someone who uses PGP, but doesn't use WhatsApp this is the key piece of context that makes this a questionable trade-off instead of a crazy one. It would be better if the default was for there to be a notification and for there to be an option to disable resending messages on key change, but I can at least understand why they would sacrifice some security in order to make E2E encryption transparent to users who don't know they need it.
- tptacek 10y agoThis is exactly right. It is a good thing that there is both a messenger like Signal that tries to be ultra-strict about key changes and a messenger like WhatsApp that tries to be transparent about it. Signal's smaller user base of people interested in cryptography functions as a laboratory for crypto UX. WhatsApp, over the long term, can adopt the innovations that make sense, while Signal remains free to experiment. That's why there's both Signal and WhatsApp, and why they don't directly interoperate.
- baby 10y agoexact. Now can we have this fixed as an opt-in option?