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I'd love a technical explanation of how this works. Are all the messages kept on the phone? How does it relate to the Whisper Systems end to end encryption on

by frabcus 12y ago

I'd love a technical explanation of how this works. Are all the messages kept on the phone? How does it relate to the Whisper Systems end to end encryption on the Android to Android version of WhatsApp? Is there some relationship between the two - is this very bizarre web interface there because of constraints relating to privacy and encryption? i.e. WhatsApp don't have your messages. [Edit] Is it peer to peer in some fancy way - is it only for Chrome because it uses WebRTC or something?

pjc50 12y ago
Related discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8926644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8926644 It seems to be trying to keep the link between users and phone numbers as 1:1 as possible. This has a number of effects against bots and spam, ties in with matching users from other user's addressbooks etc. It's probably also bad for privacy/pseudonymity.
jeffasinger 12y ago
The Chrome only aspect is touched upon in the article. They are using the requestFileSystem() API, which only works on Chrome. I'm not sure why they couldn't have used a more standard means of storing data.
calgoo 12y ago
What i remember from the Erlang discussions around Whatsapp, they dont keep the messages on the server, only temporary until it has been delivered. So Im guessing that is the reason why they need your phone to be connected. Might have been in this video [1]... Not sure at the moment (will check later when im out of the office). [1] http://vimeo.com/44312354 http://vimeo.com/44312354
- calgoo 12y ago
  OK found an explanation here: [1] "What protocol is used in Whatsapp app? SSL socket to the WhatsApp server pools. All messages are queued on the server until the client reconnects to retrieve the messages. The successful retrieval of a message is sent back to the whatsapp server which forwards this status back to the original sender (which will see that as a "checkmark" icon next to the message). Messages are wiped from the server memory as soon as the client has accepted the message" [1] http://www.quora.com/What-is-WhatsApps-server-architecture http://www.quora.com/What-is-WhatsApps-server-architecture

by frabcus 12y ago

pjc50 12y ago

Related discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8926644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8926644 It seems to be trying to keep the link between users and phone numbers as 1:1 as possible. This has a number of effects against bots and spam, ties in with matching users from other user's addressbooks etc. It's probably also bad for privacy/pseudonymity.

jeffasinger 12y ago

The Chrome only aspect is touched upon in the article. They are using the requestFileSystem() API, which only works on Chrome. I'm not sure why they couldn't have used a more standard means of storing data.

calgoo 12y ago

What i remember from the Erlang discussions around Whatsapp, they dont keep the messages on the server, only temporary until it has been delivered. So Im guessing that is the reason why they need your phone to be connected. Might have been in this video [1]... Not sure at the moment (will check later when im out of the office). [1] http://vimeo.com/44312354 http://vimeo.com/44312354

calgoo 12y ago
OK found an explanation here: [1] "What protocol is used in Whatsapp app? SSL socket to the WhatsApp server pools. All messages are queued on the server until the client reconnects to retrieve the messages. The successful retrieval of a message is sent back to the whatsapp server which forwards this status back to the original sender (which will see that as a "checkmark" icon next to the message). Messages are wiped from the server memory as soon as the client has accepted the message" [1] http://www.quora.com/What-is-WhatsApps-server-architecture http://www.quora.com/What-is-WhatsApps-server-architecture