This is no real surprise, if true. Ever since Meta got their grubby hands on WhatsApp they’ve been trying to find ways to get through its encryption. For a while the only thing stopping that was a few senior members of the WhatsApp team resisting these demands. But that kind of defiance can only last so long when they are your employer.
I’ve been trying to use Signal more, mostly due to concerns over Meta probably snooping on the WhatsApp communications. But some of my contacts either don’t want to switch or they can’t get Signal working correctly (they can’t see or find contacts - an issue I’ve seen myself).
I deleted WhatsApp completely a couple months ago.
Those who really need to text me can get Signal, send a regular text message or just send an email. The main thing I am missing out on is forwarded memes and unecessery voice messages - so quite honestly nothing of any imporance!
Oh how I hate voice messages. There’s a reason I disabled voicemail for my phone. If you wanna talk, call me. Otherwise: write. And if you’re driving: don’t! I can wait.
I’m really confused that people still use meta products.
they are digital tapeworms.
U.S. authorities, who stupidly use WhatsApp for private communication, investigate claims that Zuckerbot is reading their shit.
I’m sure they can. Every word in messenger is recorded. A while back, when still using it with family, I did a data request. And there it was. A transcript of everything I ever typed into messenger.
I’ve never had WhatsApp or Instagram. Or TikTok, mainly because shorts offer more annoyances and bad brain feels than good.
NO
SHIT
So Whatsapp, despite using E2E encryption, always has the keys to decrypt your messages? Did I get that right?
Any Meta app in your phone can read it whenever it wants. It just doesn’t send the message itself to their server.
Didn’t they tell everyone when it came out that because people may report messages to meta it will all be accessible by them?
Threema is a good, encrypted, European alternative. Wire and Session might also be good.
Session is not that good. SimpleX is a much better alternative. Session got rid of forward secrecy, meaning that if one of your keys is intercepted, any new messages going forwards will be encrypted but your old ones are able to be decrypted. Signal has forward secrecy, as does SimpleX.
SimpleX I would say is really the best tool for organizing and activism because you use a random identity for the protocol instead of a username and phone number like Signal, and each time you enter a new group or chat, you can create a new identity with no ties to your last one. Also Simplex runs all traffic through Tor and LokiNet (a modified version of the Onion protocol meant to be faster and able to process more bandwidth for things like voice calls). Session also routes everything through Tor but again, it lacks what SimpleX has. And Simplex also has the additional privacy over Signal.
Signal is a great interpersonal chat app, and when functioning as an SMS/RCS/Phonecall alternative it is a great app. Never going to say don’t use Signal, it is simple enough for most people switching from normal text to use, and much much more secure. But definitely check out SimpleX as well!
