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> At least with WhatsApp they only have my Metadata... Only until Facebook decides to weaken or eliminate its end-to-end encryption. It's surprising that feat

by 394549 8y ago

> At least with WhatsApp they only have my Metadata... Only until Facebook decides to weaken or eliminate its end-to-end encryption. It's surprising that feature has lasted this long, since it's so antithetical to Facebook's business model of slurping up every bit of personal data it can.

WA 8y ago
Presumably because the meta data are quite excessive and telling anyways.
avip 8y ago
e2e was delivered 2016, WhatsApp was acquired in 2014.
- 394549 8y ago
  > e2e was delivered 2016, WhatsApp was acquired in 2014. Both WhatsApp founders have left Facebook recently, and they were much more privacy focused than Zuckerberg and Sandberg. My understanding is they protected the WhatsApp team from the culture of the rest of Facebook, but now that they're gone I don't see that continuing in the same way.
  - soziawa 8y ago
    > and they were much more privacy focused than Zuckerberg and Sandberg. And just remember, those were the two guys who thought that transport encryption was too expensive for a messaging app.
johannes1234321 8y ago
See this story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17238241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17238241 It's likely there will be changes to WhatsApp soon.
ggg9990 8y ago
They won’t do that until they have a different app supporting E2E. Why would they voluntarily lose all E2E users to a competitor?
- 394549 8y ago
  > They won’t do that until they have a different app supporting E2E. Why would they voluntarily lose all E2E users to a competitor? I would like to be optimistic, but the realist in me thinks the number of users for which end-to-end encryption is a vital feature is vanishingly small. And maybe all FB needs to do to keep those users is to make end-to-end encryption on WhatsApp opt-in, so they can provide ~~"wonderful new features to you"~~ if you keep it off.
- Scea91 8y ago
  Not sure, but doesn't Messenger support E2E as opt-in?
product50 8y ago
They launched e2e encryption after acquisition. There is nothing which suggests it will be weakened. There is now e2e encryption in Messenger as well if you want to enable it.

by 394549 8y ago

WA 8y ago

Presumably because the meta data are quite excessive and telling anyways.

avip 8y ago

e2e was delivered 2016, WhatsApp was acquired in 2014.

394549 8y ago
> e2e was delivered 2016, WhatsApp was acquired in 2014. Both WhatsApp founders have left Facebook recently, and they were much more privacy focused than Zuckerberg and Sandberg. My understanding is they protected the WhatsApp team from the culture of the rest of Facebook, but now that they're gone I don't see that continuing in the same way.
- soziawa 8y ago
  > and they were much more privacy focused than Zuckerberg and Sandberg. And just remember, those were the two guys who thought that transport encryption was too expensive for a messaging app.

johannes1234321 8y ago

See this story: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17238241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17238241 It's likely there will be changes to WhatsApp soon.

ggg9990 8y ago

They won’t do that until they have a different app supporting E2E. Why would they voluntarily lose all E2E users to a competitor?

394549 8y ago
> They won’t do that until they have a different app supporting E2E. Why would they voluntarily lose all E2E users to a competitor? I would like to be optimistic, but the realist in me thinks the number of users for which end-to-end encryption is a vital feature is vanishingly small. And maybe all FB needs to do to keep those users is to make end-to-end encryption on WhatsApp opt-in, so they can provide ~~"wonderful new features to you"~~ if you keep it off.
Scea91 8y ago
Not sure, but doesn't Messenger support E2E as opt-in?

product50 8y ago

They launched e2e encryption after acquisition. There is nothing which suggests it will be weakened. There is now e2e encryption in Messenger as well if you want to enable it.