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With the poor, let's say terrible, security posture WhatsApp always had, this is really not the way to communicate the message that they care and want their sof

With the poor, let's say terrible, security posture WhatsApp always had, this is really not the way to communicate the message that they care and want their software to be scrutinized. Open implementations are a great help to any reverse engineer trying to figure out the mess that is their protocol. This is exactly what triggers full disclosure.

balladeer 13y ago
You know what was pathetic? With all its security and authentication loopholes people still used it. I gave it up for time but friends still won't listen and then I had to come back. Now, Facebook is sth I can't tolerate. At least earlier I didn't run the visible risk of my very intimate messages falling into advertisers' hands.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- gkya 13y ago
  You are technology-aware somehow. Billions of people are not. Us, the IT bunch, must understand this. People buy apps that make fart sounds or only show a damn GIF of a naked someone. People send emails (yes, they somehow manage to do so), and call you after to notify you. Wake up.
dotBen 13y ago
"this is really not the way to communicate the message that they ... want their software to be scrutinized" To be fair, isn't the case for most proprietary software - even for the most security-concerned closed-source companies? No one at WhatsApp has ever warrented that their software is open source, that they want to produce open source or that they share open source values.
- Jtsummers 13y ago
  As I understand it they've contributed a lot back to the erlang platform itself. It's their particular system that they want to keep proprietary.
- FiloSottile 13y ago
  "isn't the case for most proprietary software - even for the most security-concerned closed-source companies" Frequently, and it is an attitude I really dislike. A serious dedicated attacker can replicate the reversing work quite fast, but this kind of things make it really hard to dedicate a couple of hors to assessing the quality of a protocol. Moreover, they demonstrated not to be security-concerned, so this comes to me as covering tracks, even if it isn't.

balladeer 13y ago

You know what was pathetic? With all its security and authentication loopholes people still used it. I gave it up for time but friends still won't listen and then I had to come back. Now, Facebook is sth I can't tolerate. At least earlier I didn't run the visible risk of my very intimate messages falling into advertisers' hands.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
gkya 13y ago
You are technology-aware somehow. Billions of people are not. Us, the IT bunch, must understand this. People buy apps that make fart sounds or only show a damn GIF of a naked someone. People send emails (yes, they somehow manage to do so), and call you after to notify you. Wake up.

dotBen 13y ago

"this is really not the way to communicate the message that they ... want their software to be scrutinized" To be fair, isn't the case for most proprietary software - even for the most security-concerned closed-source companies? No one at WhatsApp has ever warrented that their software is open source, that they want to produce open source or that they share open source values.

Jtsummers 13y ago
As I understand it they've contributed a lot back to the erlang platform itself. It's their particular system that they want to keep proprietary.
FiloSottile 13y ago
"isn't the case for most proprietary software - even for the most security-concerned closed-source companies" Frequently, and it is an attitude I really dislike. A serious dedicated attacker can replicate the reversing work quite fast, but this kind of things make it really hard to dedicate a couple of hors to assessing the quality of a protocol. Moreover, they demonstrated not to be security-concerned, so this comes to me as covering tracks, even if it isn't.