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Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

I think titles like this are actively harmful.

WhatsApp is the only mainstream messaging platform that uses proper end-to-end encryption by default. From what I've understood, it's much safer than other popular alternatives, such as texting, Facebook Messenger, Slack, iMessage, and, yes, Telegram.

Sure, it's still not perfect. But to casual readers, it's totally not obvious that if WhatsApp is a "dumpster fire", all popular alternatives except Signal and Matrix and the likes are a nuclear disaster.

Nobody at WhatsApp claims that it's good for overthrowing your government. But if I want to send a password to my sister without having her install an app, just to satisfy her brother's tin foil hat, I think WhatsApp is a much better choice than every other option I have readily available.

We should stop driving people from somewhat secure tools towards insecure tools.

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> it's much safer than other popular alternatives, such as texting, Facebook Messenger, Slack, iMessage, and, yes, Telegram.

At least hear out what the Telegram devs have to say about this:

> WhatsApp aggressively pushes users to enable backups to third-party services by Apple and Google. Even if you don't backup your messages, it is extremely likely that your chat partners are doing so. It is likely that they don‘t even remember dismissing an annoying notification with a “yes” a long time ago. The interface provides no way of knowing whether or not your messages are being backed up. Meanwhile, for group chats of five members, there’s a 99% probability that all messages are stored on Apple‘s or Google’s servers in the US.

> As Product Manager Randall Sarafa put it, just one month after Google Drive backups were introduced to Whatsapp:

> “About 75% of Whatsapp users are on Android, and of our Android users, we have about 40% of them opted into Google Drive backups today. That will likely continue to increase over time, as people get prompted.”

https://telegra.ph/whatsapp-backdoor-01-16

So Whatsapp's usage of end to end encryption might not be as helpful as advertised.

I suggest you use Signal or Threema instead of apps like Whatsapp or Telegram. Both lack options to back up to the cloud.

> The interface provides no way of knowing whether or not your messages are being backed up.

The interface is clear about it on your side: https://postimg.cc/gn3LxBNz

If you mean the other side, then the only valid assumption is: yes, the other side of conversation backs up your messages. This is unavoidable and for the general population having a backup is more important than the edge case where the backup is abused.

Completely agreed.

WhatsApp has been more successful than any other technology in history in getting people to use end to end encryption by orders of magnitude. Yes, there are limits. Yes, people with strict privacy concerns should consider other options. But altogether WhatsApp has been an outrageous win for privacy advocates.

> From what I've understood, it's much safer than other popular alternatives, such as texting, Facebook Messenger, Slack, iMessage, and, yes, Telegram.

you forgot WeChat, which is also pretty secure provided that you trust the CCP.

> We should stop driving people from somewhat secure tools towards insecure tools.

you think that Signal is an insecure tool when compared to WhatsApp?

> you think that Signal is an insecure tool when compared to WhatsApp?

Signal is pretty secure, but Moxie's "The Ecosystem Is Moving" is the wrong mindset. Email is only still alive because anyone* can run their own with their own settings.

* including companies and individuals

No, but a non security geek will not, when reading a headline calling WhatsApp a dumpster fire, think of moving to Signal. They'll likely move to eg Telegram.

iMessage and FaceTime have been E2EE for at least 4-5 years, and Messages in iCloud is too fwiw [1] (as well as other misc services, the list has grown over time). There are other reasonable complaints, not at all least of which is it’s not cross platform and iCloud Backups are not encrypted (reportedly due to government pressure too!). But security/privacy shouldn’t be one, for Apple<>Apple devices anyway (low friction fallback to SMS is its own can of worms in 2020). I don’t know about the others on your list but you got iMessage wrong at least.

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1: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

What is the value of end to end encryption if Apple or Google is at the other end with default plain text backups? Who are you trying to get privacy from with this fancy encryption?

It sounds like your whole life (social graph and private messages) is one search away by big entities. Who is big enough to intercept your messages but is unable to get the unencrypted data in storage?

You're missing one thing: incentives.

Even if Telegram has shoddy crypto, their funding model is "we got a pile of money from a billionaire". WhatsApp's funding model is "senator, we run ads".

Thus, WhatsApp will be incentivized to lie as far as possible about these claims, whereas Telegram could at worst be considered to be mildly incompetent.

matrix.org is almost unusable as it stands. I really would love to recommend it to people but as it stands it just is not an option.

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