Two questions.
My family insist on using Whatsapp for the family chats. I have to keep a copy on a device just so I can communicate with them. I do so under protest, as I was always told it isn’t secure. My brother has just said
“oh Whatsapp is encrypted, it’s perfectly secure”.
First, is it actually as encrypted and safe as my brother claims? That would solve everything.
Second, if it isn’t, where can I get some proof that we should switch to Telegram or whatever? Proof which doesn’t make me look like a raving loony?
Technically, yes, it is encrypted. However, Facebook still gets metadata on who you talk to, when you talk to them, how long you talk to them, your contact information, etc. As an example, if you talked to your girlfriend, then you talked to her doctor, and then you talked to your mom. There’s a good chance that your girlfriend may be pregnant, even if I did not know what was said. Or, if I know you are at the top of a bridge and that you contacted a suicide hotline… So just because it is encrypted does not mean it is safe.
Also WhatsApp requests access to the phone book and is very hard to use if you deny access. This is very likely done because Facebook wants access to the stored numbers to build a social graph. Even if you personally don’t mind, it is a gross privacy violation to share the phone number of other people with Facebook.
Question, how would you use a messaging app that identifies users trough phone numbers without giving it access to phone numbers?
By typing in the numbers, or selectively sharing them from the address book. This works fine on Signal, Telegram and Threema. Only Whatsapp makes it so that you have to share your entire address book with the app.
With some workarounds you can actually use whatsapp also without giving it access to your address book, which shows that it is clearly an intentional dark pattern by Facebook to make people share their entire address book with them to avoid the hassle.
That’s clever about the pregnancy.
I would have thought it was about a case of herpes that you caught from your girlfriend and then gave to your mom.
And that’s why privacy is important - the assumptions and decisions an algorithm makes are not necessarily correct, often not even close.
Edit:before someone wants to be smart: yes, I know it’s a joke.
ml doesn’t understand jokes very well, so honestly it’s not a shit example lol
This made me laugh. Thanks
Well said. I’m saving this comment in case I need to explain this to someone else.
the other important thing with all of this is that even if your girlfriend is taking care, THEY STILL KNOW
people around you (or “you”, in this case) using these services impacts your privacy
is there anything we can do about that? probably not
but it’s worth being aware of