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I am happy WhatsApp turned out great for him, what did not go so great is getting away to a country that does not tap phones. "The experience of living in a co

I am happy WhatsApp turned out great for him, what did not go so great is getting away to a country that does not tap phones. "The experience of living in a country where phone lines were often tapped, instilled the importance of privacy in him, said Jim Goetz, a partner with Sequoia Capital Ltd., WhatsApp’s lone venture capital investor."

mcintyre1994 13y ago
I wonder if the NSA tapped WhatsApp at all and if so how he felt about it, I haven't heard anything but it seems like it would have been a great target for them, US company with loads of international users messaging.
- dmix 13y ago
  WhatsApp's SSL implementation sucks, so the NSA doesn't even need to approach them directly. They can transparently intercept messages: http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/02/crypto-weaknesses-in-whatsapp-the-kind-of-stuff-the-nsa-would-love/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/02/crypto-weaknesses-in...
lmg643 13y ago
There's a Yakov Smirnoff joke in here somewhere. "In [Ukraine], government taps phones of companies. In America, companies tap phones for government!" Unfortunately, these jokes were usually presented the other way around - with Soviet Union as the butt of jokes. Times change... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_reversal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_reversal
josefresco 13y ago
That statement was made in reference to features of the app not in reference to what country he moved to. He didn't say "now that I'm in America and have privacy I can make this app* It said basically his experience living in a country with no privacy led him to build his app in a way that respects privacy of it's users. Big difference. You could make the same argument about his current country (the US) although I don't think anyone can seriously compare the two.

3 ms·

I am happy WhatsApp turned out great for him, what did not go so great is getting away to a country that does not tap phones. "The experience of living in a co

by TrainedMonkey 13y ago

mcintyre1994 13y ago
I wonder if the NSA tapped WhatsApp at all and if so how he felt about it, I haven't heard anything but it seems like it would have been a great target for them, US company with loads of international users messaging.
- dmix 13y ago
  WhatsApp's SSL implementation sucks, so the NSA doesn't even need to approach them directly. They can transparently intercept messages: http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/02/crypto-weaknesses-in-whatsapp-the-kind-of-stuff-the-nsa-would-love/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/02/crypto-weaknesses-in...
lmg643 13y ago
There's a Yakov Smirnoff joke in here somewhere. "In [Ukraine], government taps phones of companies. In America, companies tap phones for government!" Unfortunately, these jokes were usually presented the other way around - with Soviet Union as the butt of jokes. Times change... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_reversal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_reversal
josefresco 13y ago
That statement was made in reference to features of the app not in reference to what country he moved to. He didn't say "now that I'm in America and have privacy I can make this app* It said basically his experience living in a country with no privacy led him to build his app in a way that respects privacy of it's users. Big difference. You could make the same argument about his current country (the US) although I don't think anyone can seriously compare the two.