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So, I use WhatsApp as my primary source of communication. Knowing facebook owned it always made me a little nervous, but given that it was end-to-end encrypted

So, I use WhatsApp as my primary source of communication. Knowing facebook owned it always made me a little nervous, but given that it was end-to-end encrypted, I figured Facebook wasn't getting any more from me then they would from all my facebook-using-friends who would send me SMS's before. But I'm worried about how long I can continue to use the service moving forward, which is sad as this is my main way to communicate with relatives who live in other countries. And I doubt I can convince an elderly relative to switch to Signal, as we're still working on teaching her how everything in WhatsApp works. I also recently purchased an Oculus. I like it way more than the current Vive revisions (although I want to have a non-HTC headset and Valve Knuckles as my next VR set), but the fact that it's owned by facebook unsettles me as well.

pm90 8y ago
Hmm once you teach someone to use WhatsApp, another messaging app shouldn't be that hard to learn. I believe FB have been very careful to prevent misusing WhatsApp platform (or have been very good at keeping the misuse secret lol); if word got out that they were it would certainly lead to a huge exodus.
- Djvacto 8y ago
  The problem is what they've learned is mostly to do with what icons (which they have no context for, never having used a computer or smartphone prior to this) they press to get certain results. And we teach them this over an audio call, so trying to learn a new one would definitely be a challenge. But overall I would swap back to different apps were WhatsApp to be 'compromised' or misused. Discord text chat for my gaming group, Signal for some tech chats, etc. Overall it's a shame, since I was very appreciative of the approach the Whats-App founders took. But if we're lucky, WhatsApp will remain mostly the same for a while.
- webignition 8y ago
  For many this is probably true. For my 84 year old neighbour, not so. He regularly pops round for help with sharing a picture on WhatsApp. It's beyond my neighbour's ability to learn how to use WhatsApp correctly. Learning another messaging app for him is not an option.
k_vi 8y ago
Facebook having access to your contacts and maybe location too is still scary.
- Djvacto 8y ago
  That's true as well. I recently deactivated my (unused for years) facebook account, but this is definitely something else to think about.
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
> but given that it was end-to-end encrypted, ... FB, via the WhatsApp app, have access to your unencrypted messages before the app encrypts them and sends them on. So, there's reason to worry now that FB is in full control. I have no doubt they'll extract data from your conversations and inject targeted ads. Edit: Am I wrong? Do they not have access to the plain text?
- doctorsher 8y ago
  With regards to your edit, yes, you are wrong. And I don't mean that in a harsh way, just answering your question. From WhatsApp themselves [0]: "WhatsApp end-to-end encryption ensures only you and the person you're communicating with can read what's sent, and nobody in between, not even WhatsApp. Your messages are secured with locks, and only the recipient and you have the special keys needed to unlock and read your messages." [0] https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/general/28030015 https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/general/28030015
  - lyzan 8y ago
    That is end to end from your phone to their phone, and they are talking about 3rd parties outside the app. As your physically typing the the information into the chat message box, and before you send it, the app itself should have access to the plain text coming from the keyboard, which it then encrypts before it leaves your phone. Similarly it needs decrypted on the other side and displayed to the other user, at which time the app again has accesd to clear text versions. I don't believe there's any way to encrypt the message before the app sends the message / while it is displaying to the recipient
    - doctorsher 8y ago
      Of course, there must be plaintext at some point... I don't understand this line of reasoning. WhatsApp tells their users and more importantly the US Gov they do not have any access to the message content itself. For this attack surface to be an issue, that would mean WhatsApp is telling a bold faced lie, secretly exfiltrating the plaintext to a 3rd party, and doing so without getting caught by any black-box auditing.
brisance 8y ago
According to this article, somehow prosecutors were able to retrieve deleted WhatsApp messages. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/five-individuals-and-or-kim-peow-contractors-charged-in-court-for-changi https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/five-ind...
- Djvacto 8y ago
  So I see it mention that they were in trouble for deleting "potentiall incriminating" conversations. Are there any details or other articles that confirm the deleted messages were retrieved?
  - sk5t 8y ago
    Ditto, the linked article indicates only that the parties had deleted a conversation between them at a critical moment, but not that the specific content of that conversation could be known.
FigmentEngine 8y ago
This is why I moved to Signal after the whole brexit/us election saga. open source and not run by an advertising company
- nafey 8y ago
  I have been hearing a lot of good things about signal... How are their servers paid for though if it's a free service?
  - FigmentEngine 8y ago
    "supported by grants and donations" according to their site.
    - majidazimi 8y ago
      Why is everyone doing business with a black and white strategy? On one extreme, everything is free and funded by selling user information and on the other extreme, everthing is free but funded by donation. What is wrong with 2$/year model? Everyone (I mean truly everyone) is willing to pay that.
      - mrep 8y ago
        I disagree, some very poor people most likely prefer the ads then parting with 2$. One thing people forget about advertising it is a pretty good at price discriminating. Ads to rich people are worth more than ads to poor people so advertisers can make more money from those with more money to spend while still serving everyone.
        ascorbic 8y ago
        WhatsApp's $1/year charge only applied in certain (rich) countries.
      - nbluth 8y ago
        It's hard enough to get people to switch from whatsapp when signal is free.
moedersmooiste 8y ago
I installed Signal a while back and tried to convince as many people as possible to switch. But only 7 people in my contact list have Signal installed. Even when communicating with those 7 people i tend to use WhatsApp because i tend to process all my messages at once without switching apps.
- kolbe 8y ago
  I'm doing the same, and I only have 10 people. They happen to be my favorite 10 people, but still only 10. I think Signal or something of that nature will be the ultimate endgame for communication systems. They're way too easy to make, they're cheap to maintain, and they're hard to monetize without being scummy. This is the perfect formula for a non-profit to step in. I think the WhatsApp founders alone could maintain a worldwide textual communication network for the rest of their lives using a small fraction of their wealth.
  - moedersmooiste 8y ago
    It seems to be inevitable that the "scummy" ones finish first. Deskop Linux could have been more popular than Windows, GIMP more popular than Photoshop and Signal more popular than WhatsApp if only they where first. But the Open Source world always lags behind when it comes to developing new stuff for ordinary consumers.
- sdenton4 8y ago
  My strategy is to use it for planning birthday parties. Gets lots of people in for planning big group "secrets", and then they stick with the app afterwards.
- inthaiguy 8y ago
  Telegram is the natural replacement for WhatsApp - very similar, but so much nicer. I also use Signal ( and about 10 other messaging apps ) and while good, it’s a little rough around the edges and needs improvement.
_jal 8y ago
I find it much easier to not communicate with FB properties, period. That way I only worry that my IP tables are up to date. I also realize other peoples' choice of family/friends make that hard for them. (My FB-addict-mother and I email, and at this point even the passive-aggressive bits about not seeing pictures has stopped.) But if you can, I can attest that the internet is a much nicer place with a big hole where FB (and similar hostile entities) used to be.
Angostura 8y ago
Surely they’re getting a lot more info. Whatsapp demand complete access to your Contacts to work properly. So they know your full name and address, your bank, the names addresses and perhaps jobs of your friends and colleagues etc.
- Djvacto 8y ago
  How do they get bank?
  - TremendousJudge 8y ago
    maybe because they have it as a contact?
- arwineap 8y ago
  Only to send messages to your contacts; if you deny whatsapp access you can still respond to anyone that contacts you You just can't be the first person to start the conversation
  - Angostura 8y ago
    As, I say "to work properly". I can't send a message to anyone, without giving it access to everyone. How daft is that.
doctorsher 8y ago
I totally understand. You are facing the classic dilemma of privacy vs convenience. Personally, I distrusted facebook so much that I have avoided any of their products since 2013. Obviously a major win for my privacy, but it sacrificed some convenience -- then I had no real-time way to communicate with my relative in India. In the end, you'll have to do some introspection to see if the convenience gained is worth the privacy lost. How essential is it that you communicate in real-time with your relatives? Would your relationship be substantially different if you sent email or wrote letters?
- tgsovlerkhgsel 8y ago
  At this point, it isn't about privacy vs. convenience, it's about privacy vs. being able to have a social life. People aren't going to install a more privacy-supportive messenger just for you, they'll gradually let you drop out of their lives just like you would with a friend that you can only reach by driving to their farm 6 hours away.
  - doctorsher 8y ago
    Replace convenience with whatever benefit you see most pertinent. That is your trade-off. For me, convenience is the most frequent benefit.
  - plankers 8y ago
    People had social lives before facebook existed... it largely consisted of going places and seeing people regularly. This still works, believe it or not.
- Djvacto 8y ago
  It's definitely tough, but a big perk of WhatsApp is also the data-calls (instead of paying for long-distance). Maybe next time I visit I can try to help convince them to check out something new, but I also ended up dragging a couple of social groups onto WhatsApp to organize events, chat, etc just by viture of it being what most people use. Especially over in Europe, it's very heavily used and not easy to replace, as it's sometimes the de-facto platform for communication. But it's definitely a trade-off, so I at least kind of have a choice.
newscracker 8y ago
For all the rap it gets for its own crypto, I would still recommend Telegram as an alternative because of its superior UX. It shouldn’t be very difficult to move from WhatsApp to Telegram (of course, I do understand that people who are not used to technology much may have difficulties). I wouldn’t recommend Signal to anyone who’s not paranoid about privacy and security. It still needs to improve a lot on UX, reliability and many other fronts.
- mathinpens 8y ago
  signal UX is great!
ohtwenty 8y ago
Wrt changing to signal, just say 'it got an update' and switch it out to where the icon used to be. Provided the rest of your family switched it shouldn't be too difficult
ctrlaltdestroy 8y ago
Sure it's end-to-end encrypted.. But Facebook doesn't have to get in the middle to look at your messages. Facebook is sitting at both ends, reading the messages after they are decrypted. It is already monetizing these messages and the ads are shown in Facebook instead of Whatsapp. Whether the opt-out functionality for this feature is honored properly by Facebook I'm not sure.
- brandonsometig 8y ago
  It's not end-to-end if Facebook can read them after they are delivered. Facebook only have access to the metadata.

pm90 8y ago

Hmm once you teach someone to use WhatsApp, another messaging app shouldn't be that hard to learn. I believe FB have been very careful to prevent misusing WhatsApp platform (or have been very good at keeping the misuse secret lol); if word got out that they were it would certainly lead to a huge exodus.

Djvacto 8y ago
The problem is what they've learned is mostly to do with what icons (which they have no context for, never having used a computer or smartphone prior to this) they press to get certain results. And we teach them this over an audio call, so trying to learn a new one would definitely be a challenge. But overall I would swap back to different apps were WhatsApp to be 'compromised' or misused. Discord text chat for my gaming group, Signal for some tech chats, etc. Overall it's a shame, since I was very appreciative of the approach the Whats-App founders took. But if we're lucky, WhatsApp will remain mostly the same for a while.
webignition 8y ago
For many this is probably true. For my 84 year old neighbour, not so. He regularly pops round for help with sharing a picture on WhatsApp. It's beyond my neighbour's ability to learn how to use WhatsApp correctly. Learning another messaging app for him is not an option.

k_vi 8y ago

Facebook having access to your contacts and maybe location too is still scary.

Djvacto 8y ago
That's true as well. I recently deactivated my (unused for years) facebook account, but this is definitely something else to think about.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

> but given that it was end-to-end encrypted, ... FB, via the WhatsApp app, have access to your unencrypted messages before the app encrypts them and sends them on. So, there's reason to worry now that FB is in full control. I have no doubt they'll extract data from your conversations and inject targeted ads. Edit: Am I wrong? Do they not have access to the plain text?

doctorsher 8y ago
With regards to your edit, yes, you are wrong. And I don't mean that in a harsh way, just answering your question. From WhatsApp themselves [0]: "WhatsApp end-to-end encryption ensures only you and the person you're communicating with can read what's sent, and nobody in between, not even WhatsApp. Your messages are secured with locks, and only the recipient and you have the special keys needed to unlock and read your messages." [0] https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/general/28030015 https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/general/28030015
- lyzan 8y ago
  That is end to end from your phone to their phone, and they are talking about 3rd parties outside the app. As your physically typing the the information into the chat message box, and before you send it, the app itself should have access to the plain text coming from the keyboard, which it then encrypts before it leaves your phone. Similarly it needs decrypted on the other side and displayed to the other user, at which time the app again has accesd to clear text versions. I don't believe there's any way to encrypt the message before the app sends the message / while it is displaying to the recipient
  - doctorsher 8y ago
    Of course, there must be plaintext at some point... I don't understand this line of reasoning. WhatsApp tells their users and more importantly the US Gov they do not have any access to the message content itself. For this attack surface to be an issue, that would mean WhatsApp is telling a bold faced lie, secretly exfiltrating the plaintext to a 3rd party, and doing so without getting caught by any black-box auditing.

brisance 8y ago

According to this article, somehow prosecutors were able to retrieve deleted WhatsApp messages. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/five-individuals-and-or-kim-peow-contractors-charged-in-court-for-changi https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/five-ind...

Djvacto 8y ago
So I see it mention that they were in trouble for deleting "potentiall incriminating" conversations. Are there any details or other articles that confirm the deleted messages were retrieved?
- sk5t 8y ago
  Ditto, the linked article indicates only that the parties had deleted a conversation between them at a critical moment, but not that the specific content of that conversation could be known.

FigmentEngine 8y ago

This is why I moved to Signal after the whole brexit/us election saga. open source and not run by an advertising company

nafey 8y ago
I have been hearing a lot of good things about signal... How are their servers paid for though if it's a free service?
- FigmentEngine 8y ago
  "supported by grants and donations" according to their site.
  - majidazimi 8y ago
    Why is everyone doing business with a black and white strategy? On one extreme, everything is free and funded by selling user information and on the other extreme, everthing is free but funded by donation. What is wrong with 2$/year model? Everyone (I mean truly everyone) is willing to pay that.
    - mrep 8y ago
      I disagree, some very poor people most likely prefer the ads then parting with 2$. One thing people forget about advertising it is a pretty good at price discriminating. Ads to rich people are worth more than ads to poor people so advertisers can make more money from those with more money to spend while still serving everyone.
      - ascorbic 8y ago
        WhatsApp's $1/year charge only applied in certain (rich) countries.
    - nbluth 8y ago
      It's hard enough to get people to switch from whatsapp when signal is free.

moedersmooiste 8y ago

I installed Signal a while back and tried to convince as many people as possible to switch. But only 7 people in my contact list have Signal installed. Even when communicating with those 7 people i tend to use WhatsApp because i tend to process all my messages at once without switching apps.

kolbe 8y ago
I'm doing the same, and I only have 10 people. They happen to be my favorite 10 people, but still only 10. I think Signal or something of that nature will be the ultimate endgame for communication systems. They're way too easy to make, they're cheap to maintain, and they're hard to monetize without being scummy. This is the perfect formula for a non-profit to step in. I think the WhatsApp founders alone could maintain a worldwide textual communication network for the rest of their lives using a small fraction of their wealth.
- moedersmooiste 8y ago
  It seems to be inevitable that the "scummy" ones finish first. Deskop Linux could have been more popular than Windows, GIMP more popular than Photoshop and Signal more popular than WhatsApp if only they where first. But the Open Source world always lags behind when it comes to developing new stuff for ordinary consumers.
sdenton4 8y ago
My strategy is to use it for planning birthday parties. Gets lots of people in for planning big group "secrets", and then they stick with the app afterwards.
inthaiguy 8y ago
Telegram is the natural replacement for WhatsApp - very similar, but so much nicer. I also use Signal ( and about 10 other messaging apps ) and while good, it’s a little rough around the edges and needs improvement.

_jal 8y ago

I find it much easier to not communicate with FB properties, period. That way I only worry that my IP tables are up to date. I also realize other peoples' choice of family/friends make that hard for them. (My FB-addict-mother and I email, and at this point even the passive-aggressive bits about not seeing pictures has stopped.) But if you can, I can attest that the internet is a much nicer place with a big hole where FB (and similar hostile entities) used to be.

Angostura 8y ago

Surely they’re getting a lot more info. Whatsapp demand complete access to your Contacts to work properly. So they know your full name and address, your bank, the names addresses and perhaps jobs of your friends and colleagues etc.

Djvacto 8y ago
How do they get bank?
- TremendousJudge 8y ago
  maybe because they have it as a contact?
arwineap 8y ago
Only to send messages to your contacts; if you deny whatsapp access you can still respond to anyone that contacts you You just can't be the first person to start the conversation
- Angostura 8y ago
  As, I say "to work properly". I can't send a message to anyone, without giving it access to everyone. How daft is that.

doctorsher 8y ago

I totally understand. You are facing the classic dilemma of privacy vs convenience. Personally, I distrusted facebook so much that I have avoided any of their products since 2013. Obviously a major win for my privacy, but it sacrificed some convenience -- then I had no real-time way to communicate with my relative in India. In the end, you'll have to do some introspection to see if the convenience gained is worth the privacy lost. How essential is it that you communicate in real-time with your relatives? Would your relationship be substantially different if you sent email or wrote letters?

tgsovlerkhgsel 8y ago
At this point, it isn't about privacy vs. convenience, it's about privacy vs. being able to have a social life. People aren't going to install a more privacy-supportive messenger just for you, they'll gradually let you drop out of their lives just like you would with a friend that you can only reach by driving to their farm 6 hours away.
- doctorsher 8y ago
  Replace convenience with whatever benefit you see most pertinent. That is your trade-off. For me, convenience is the most frequent benefit.
- plankers 8y ago
  People had social lives before facebook existed... it largely consisted of going places and seeing people regularly. This still works, believe it or not.
Djvacto 8y ago
It's definitely tough, but a big perk of WhatsApp is also the data-calls (instead of paying for long-distance). Maybe next time I visit I can try to help convince them to check out something new, but I also ended up dragging a couple of social groups onto WhatsApp to organize events, chat, etc just by viture of it being what most people use. Especially over in Europe, it's very heavily used and not easy to replace, as it's sometimes the de-facto platform for communication. But it's definitely a trade-off, so I at least kind of have a choice.

newscracker 8y ago

For all the rap it gets for its own crypto, I would still recommend Telegram as an alternative because of its superior UX. It shouldn’t be very difficult to move from WhatsApp to Telegram (of course, I do understand that people who are not used to technology much may have difficulties). I wouldn’t recommend Signal to anyone who’s not paranoid about privacy and security. It still needs to improve a lot on UX, reliability and many other fronts.

mathinpens 8y ago
signal UX is great!

ohtwenty 8y ago

Wrt changing to signal, just say 'it got an update' and switch it out to where the icon used to be. Provided the rest of your family switched it shouldn't be too difficult

ctrlaltdestroy 8y ago

Sure it's end-to-end encrypted.. But Facebook doesn't have to get in the middle to look at your messages. Facebook is sitting at both ends, reading the messages after they are decrypted. It is already monetizing these messages and the ads are shown in Facebook instead of Whatsapp. Whether the opt-out functionality for this feature is honored properly by Facebook I'm not sure.

brandonsometig 8y ago
It's not end-to-end if Facebook can read them after they are delivered. Facebook only have access to the metadata.