4 ms·

Can someone give me a simple non-cynical explanation on what the update in terms is about? From my understanding, it only pertains to communications with busine

by bko 5y ago

Can someone give me a simple non-cynical explanation on what the update in terms is about? From my understanding, it only pertains to communications with businesses and give them some Facbeook tools to manage their communications with customers.

TrianguloY 5y ago
Not sure outside Europe, but here last time I checked it basically said that whenever you talk with a business account you are basically talking with Facebook, otherwise nothing else changes. Still will be nice to have another opinion.
- dotancohen 5y ago
  So it's like saying "Everything that you say to XYZ business we can listen in on"? Would we accept that from our phone companies? Does the term "business" include governments as well?
  - mr_mitm 5y ago
    Yes we would. Since regular phone calls aren't encrypted, not to speak of E2EE, phone companies can listen on all calls. Of course I suspect Meta actually will listen on business calls while traditional phone companies will most likely only do so after a court order, but we put the bar much higher with digital services compared to regular phone calls.
    - tsherr 5y ago
      That's because there's no monetary reason for the phone company to listen in but Facebook is all about listening and recording.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      I don't mean "can" as in "technically possible, even if they have no reason to". I mean "can" as in "explicitly invited, with the intention to use the data gathered to try to influence my opinion or viewpoints [1] in the future". [1] Advertising, and maybe political messages
  - TrianguloY 5y ago
    If you buy something from a shop, everything related to that transaction is known to the shop partners. If you talk to an automated machine over phone, everything you say will be recorded. This seems similar, all you say to the business will be logged by Facebook. But not because you use WhatsApp, but because the business choosed Facebook to "help" with all its transactions. If you talk to a business via telegram/Twitter/matrix/etc, and the business uses a Facebook backend, all you say can be recorded and used by Facebook. By business I'm referring to WhatsApp business accounts.
- shawnz 5y ago
  As I understand it merely allows businesses to use tools hosted by Facebook if they want.
  - TrianguloY 5y ago
    I had the impression it means all WhatsApp business accounts, no matter if they use the Facebook backend or not (because for a WhatsApp business account you need to use the WhatsApp business app, which is the one providing the service and possibly the Facebook backend itself). But I couldn't find any confirmation. There is a WhatsApp business API that is from Facebook, but apparently you don't necessarily need to use it.
    - shawnz 5y ago
      The WhatsApp business app uses E2E encryption just like the consumer app, so I don't see how that could be the case.
jeltz 5y ago
A possibility that I can see is simply that they want to add a bot API which is just a simple rest API and not E2E encrypted. And if they remove the E2EE that means FB will be able to read all messages for businesses using their bot API. Correct me if I am wrong but my understanding is that to run a WhatsApp bot you currently basically need to run a version of the whole app. No idea if my theory is correct but if it is I wonder why they won't just provide a good library which implrments their protocol, E2E encryption and everything.
- saurik 5y ago
  This was pretty explicitly explained by their representatives when this was all blowing up... and they actually DO provide the "library" version, it is just enough of an operations challenge for most businesses that they clearly got a lot of demand for a hosted solution tied to pages. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25875802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25875802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26218230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26218230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26801760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26801760
  - jeltz 5y ago
    How is using a library an operations challenge? Especially in the era of package managers like npm and maven. This seems to me like FB is incompetent and cannot write a good library for bot use.
    - rescbr 5y ago
      It’s not a library. It’s a distributed multi-node WhatsApp client that handles the proprietary parts and interacts with your chatbot application using webhooks/REST APIs. Not trivial to setup and operate, as it was designed for high-throughput scenarios. It’s very understandable that smaller customers wouldn’t want to handle that little monster.
      - jeltz 5y ago
        That is exactly what I thought which is why I suggested that FB should replace their ugly hack with a normal library. But the person who I replied claimed they have a library which sounded weird to me because then there would be no ops problem. I feel FB is solving a technical problem by alienating a bunch of their users with a terms change. Why not instead just build the right technical solution?
gertrunde 5y ago
My understanding is the same. Facebook are providing hosting services to businesses so they can centralise their business WhatsApp messaging in one place. This means that when a message is decrypted by a recipient, that decryption is taking place within a Facebook service, rather than on an end user device. Unfortunately, as you say, cynicism is a problem with anything linked to a company like Facebook/Meta that has earned a certain amount of distrust.

by bko 5y ago

TrianguloY 5y ago

Not sure outside Europe, but here last time I checked it basically said that whenever you talk with a business account you are basically talking with Facebook, otherwise nothing else changes. Still will be nice to have another opinion.

dotancohen 5y ago
So it's like saying "Everything that you say to XYZ business we can listen in on"? Would we accept that from our phone companies? Does the term "business" include governments as well?
- mr_mitm 5y ago
  Yes we would. Since regular phone calls aren't encrypted, not to speak of E2EE, phone companies can listen on all calls. Of course I suspect Meta actually will listen on business calls while traditional phone companies will most likely only do so after a court order, but we put the bar much higher with digital services compared to regular phone calls.
  - tsherr 5y ago
    That's because there's no monetary reason for the phone company to listen in but Facebook is all about listening and recording.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    I don't mean "can" as in "technically possible, even if they have no reason to". I mean "can" as in "explicitly invited, with the intention to use the data gathered to try to influence my opinion or viewpoints [1] in the future". [1] Advertising, and maybe political messages
- TrianguloY 5y ago
  If you buy something from a shop, everything related to that transaction is known to the shop partners. If you talk to an automated machine over phone, everything you say will be recorded. This seems similar, all you say to the business will be logged by Facebook. But not because you use WhatsApp, but because the business choosed Facebook to "help" with all its transactions. If you talk to a business via telegram/Twitter/matrix/etc, and the business uses a Facebook backend, all you say can be recorded and used by Facebook. By business I'm referring to WhatsApp business accounts.
shawnz 5y ago
As I understand it merely allows businesses to use tools hosted by Facebook if they want.
- TrianguloY 5y ago
  I had the impression it means all WhatsApp business accounts, no matter if they use the Facebook backend or not (because for a WhatsApp business account you need to use the WhatsApp business app, which is the one providing the service and possibly the Facebook backend itself). But I couldn't find any confirmation. There is a WhatsApp business API that is from Facebook, but apparently you don't necessarily need to use it.
  - shawnz 5y ago
    The WhatsApp business app uses E2E encryption just like the consumer app, so I don't see how that could be the case.

jeltz 5y ago

A possibility that I can see is simply that they want to add a bot API which is just a simple rest API and not E2E encrypted. And if they remove the E2EE that means FB will be able to read all messages for businesses using their bot API. Correct me if I am wrong but my understanding is that to run a WhatsApp bot you currently basically need to run a version of the whole app. No idea if my theory is correct but if it is I wonder why they won't just provide a good library which implrments their protocol, E2E encryption and everything.

saurik 5y ago
This was pretty explicitly explained by their representatives when this was all blowing up... and they actually DO provide the "library" version, it is just enough of an operations challenge for most businesses that they clearly got a lot of demand for a hosted solution tied to pages. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25875802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25875802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26218230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26218230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26801760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26801760
- jeltz 5y ago
  How is using a library an operations challenge? Especially in the era of package managers like npm and maven. This seems to me like FB is incompetent and cannot write a good library for bot use.
  - rescbr 5y ago
    It’s not a library. It’s a distributed multi-node WhatsApp client that handles the proprietary parts and interacts with your chatbot application using webhooks/REST APIs. Not trivial to setup and operate, as it was designed for high-throughput scenarios. It’s very understandable that smaller customers wouldn’t want to handle that little monster.
    - jeltz 5y ago
      That is exactly what I thought which is why I suggested that FB should replace their ugly hack with a normal library. But the person who I replied claimed they have a library which sounded weird to me because then there would be no ops problem. I feel FB is solving a technical problem by alienating a bunch of their users with a terms change. Why not instead just build the right technical solution?

gertrunde 5y ago

My understanding is the same. Facebook are providing hosting services to businesses so they can centralise their business WhatsApp messaging in one place. This means that when a message is decrypted by a recipient, that decryption is taking place within a Facebook service, rather than on an end user device. Unfortunately, as you say, cynicism is a problem with anything linked to a company like Facebook/Meta that has earned a certain amount of distrust.