Hacker News Reader

Comment by psv1 | Hacker News Reader

1. You can't know. (Unless something confirming the opposite leaks in the future).

2. Facebook's reputation is so bad when it comes to privacy at this point that trusting them is just naive.

3. Even in the best case, your metadata is certainly used. Facebook didn't pay over $20 billion for a service with no monetisation model purely out of the goodness of their hearts.

4. Whatsapp has good network effects at least here in the UK - when your flatmates or coworkers have a group chat, you can't just say "Well, let's get everyone over to Signal.". You either use Whatsapp or go without the group chat.

View on HN

1. OK...

2. You are restating my friend's argument, but the idea of E2E is precisely to remove trust from the equation. If applied properly, there's nothing the company controlling the server can do.

3. Most probably, but that's not the point here. My question is specifically about the messages themselves.

4. Sure, but not related to my question either :)

> the idea of E2E is precisely to remove trust from the equation

It doesn't do that. You don't have a way to verify what software runs when you send a whatsapp message.

Oh, it's worse. End-to-end encryption assurances are essentially in conflict with centralized control over software development and distribution. Literally the same organization end-to-end encryption is supposed to protect from is the one responsible for implementing and deploying that protection and doing that well and correctly.

That's interesting. Could you develop on this conflict?

For some reason it reminds me of the famous Moxie article: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving Is it the same idea?

It's the opposite of Moxie's propaganda. Here's an example of this conflict at play: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22106536

Agreed, but I meant "properly implemented E2EE".

I really think that you aren't even trying to understand what other people are writing in this thread and you're just going back to the same ideas that were in your head before you asked your question.

I am not the original commenter, but to be honest, you are casually dismissing very valuable points.

You claim that Whatsapp has E2EE, and that eleminates the need to trust them. Well let me ask you something: How do you know they have E2EE? You can't view the source code. Unless it's an open source program, the need to trust Facebook is still there.

And Facebook's history of continously violating user privacy can't be easily dismissed as well. If a company repeatedly collects data without consent, and sell them to third parties, you would be very naive to take them at their word.

Also the fact that Whatsapp was sold for $20 Billion is a huge red flag. Facebook isn't stupid, they wouldn't pay this much money without having a revenue plan.

So as TL;DR: It isn't 100% guaranteed that Whatsapp isn't spying on you, but we got to the point that until Facebook proves beyond doubt that they aren't, it's safe and logical to assume that they are.

I'm not claiming anything about E2EE in WhatsApp. In fact, the whole post is about trying to know whether they implement it properly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com