3 ms·

There have been several unofficial reports of Facebook unifying the backend messaging among Instagram, WhatsApp and FB Messenger. If and when that happens, E2EE

There have been several unofficial reports of Facebook unifying the backend messaging among Instagram, WhatsApp and FB Messenger. If and when that happens, E2EE on WhatsApp will finally be completely gone. Anyone knows how far along (or canceled) that plan is?

antpls 6y ago
I had a notification on Instagram the other day explaining that, for now on, all messages can be read if reported. Instagram never claimed to have e2ee, but it shows they are aligning the policies across the 3 apps.
ffpip 6y ago
> Anyone knows how far along (or canceled) that plan is? Zuckerberg said instead of removing Whatsapp's e2ee, he would add e2ee to Instagram and Messenger and then 'unify the backend', We both know how likely that is, and how long that will take to be implemented (if implemented at all)
- beagle3 6y ago
  Given that Jan Koum and Brian Acton both left a few hundred million USD on the table, and the reason was supposedly "changes to whatsapp that FB promised they wouldn't do", I would assume it is going to become perfectly wiretappable. As a other comments in this discussion pointed, e2ee means nothing because (a) the client is closed source, auto-updating, and (b) 98%[0] of the users use Google's cloud backup which is unencrypted (and I suspect was done that way to have a quickly-wiretappable change to the WhatsApp ecosystem without making it patently obvious) [0] Don't know where that comment took the number from, but it jives with my personal experience. I don't know if it is encrypted on iCloud for iPhone users.
whiterace1488 6y ago
Relevant: https://medium.com/@gzanon/no-end-to-end-encryption-does-not-prevent-facebook-from-accessing-whatsapp-chats-d7c6508731b2 https://medium.com/@gzanon/no-end-to-end-encryption-does-not...
the_duke 6y ago
Interesting. I wonder if they are using the What's App Erlang infrastructure or if they are moving away from Erlang instead.

antpls 6y ago

I had a notification on Instagram the other day explaining that, for now on, all messages can be read if reported. Instagram never claimed to have e2ee, but it shows they are aligning the policies across the 3 apps.

ffpip 6y ago

> Anyone knows how far along (or canceled) that plan is? Zuckerberg said instead of removing Whatsapp's e2ee, he would add e2ee to Instagram and Messenger and then 'unify the backend', We both know how likely that is, and how long that will take to be implemented (if implemented at all)

beagle3 6y ago
Given that Jan Koum and Brian Acton both left a few hundred million USD on the table, and the reason was supposedly "changes to whatsapp that FB promised they wouldn't do", I would assume it is going to become perfectly wiretappable. As a other comments in this discussion pointed, e2ee means nothing because (a) the client is closed source, auto-updating, and (b) 98%[0] of the users use Google's cloud backup which is unencrypted (and I suspect was done that way to have a quickly-wiretappable change to the WhatsApp ecosystem without making it patently obvious) [0] Don't know where that comment took the number from, but it jives with my personal experience. I don't know if it is encrypted on iCloud for iPhone users.

whiterace1488 6y ago

Relevant: https://medium.com/@gzanon/no-end-to-end-encryption-does-not-prevent-facebook-from-accessing-whatsapp-chats-d7c6508731b2 https://medium.com/@gzanon/no-end-to-end-encryption-does-not...

the_duke 6y ago

Interesting. I wonder if they are using the What's App Erlang infrastructure or if they are moving away from Erlang instead.