Comment by namdnay | Hacker News Reader

Comment by namdnay | Hacker News Reader

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> What am I missing here?

OK, say you're a bank. The SEC states you need to keep archives of every discussion your traders have with anyone at any time (I'm simplifying things but you get the point). You keep getting massive fines because traders were whatsapping about deals

So now you've got several options - you can use MS Teams, which of course offers archival, compliance monitoring etc. But that means trusting MSFT, and making sure your traders only use Teams and nothing else. You can use a dedicated application for the financial industry, like Symphony or ICE Chat or Bloomberg, but they're clunkier than B2C apps.

And then the Smarsh (owners of Telemessage) salesman calls you, and says "your users can keep using the apps they love - WhatsApp, Signal - but we make it compliant". And everyone loves it (as long as no-one in your Security or Legal teams are looking too hard at the implications of distributing a cracked version of WhatsApp through your MDM...)

Edit: here's the install document for their cracked WhatsApp binary https://smarsh.my.salesforce.com/sfc/p/#30000001FgxH/a/Pb000...

> say you're a bank. The SEC states you need to keep archives of every discussion your traders have with anyone at any time

These records are encrypted in storage.

That is more than overly optimistic given how slow the pace of any technical innovation in finance is. The recent and not so recent issues with Citi are a good example of that.

Seems like it doesnt resolve the trust issue it just shifts it to a smaller firm with more to lose.

It definitely doesn't resolve the trust issue! I would trust MSFT a million times more than these cowboys. What it does give you is peace with your traders (who can be real divas..) - they can keep using "WhatsApp" and "Signal" and you can monitor everything

Oh wow! There are other ways to archive whatsapp messages that don't involve modified WhatsApp apks. Meta lawyers do not take kindly to modified WhatsApp apks.

> There are other ways to archive whatsapp messages that don't involve modified WhatsApp apks.

What other ways are there that don't involve WhatsApp's Google Drive backup feature or scraping the web interface?

I had scraping the web interface in mind.

The clean way to do it (which is how Telemessage’s competitors do it) is to use WhatsApp business APIs with dedicated phone numbers.

Most traders I dealt with want to do it on personal cell phone so they can keep contacts as they move around. Most of them are like salespeople, they know exactly how much money they bring in and successful ones refuse to do anything that will impede THEIR method of working. SEC Fines, Regulations? Those are for less successful people.

EDIT: There was another post calling them divas, alot of them act that way.

yes, that's why TeleMessage managed to sell such a hacky solution - there was a clear desire for that product

I mean if they're going to use their personal devices for this then a cracked Whatsapp wouldn't help the business anyway.

For devices the company controls they can of course use the API the above poster mentioned though

Yes it does. They convince the traders to let them install MDM and take over the phone, WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal still works, the business gets the records and if they leave the trading firm, the phone gets wiped but traders can just reinstall Store versions, log back in and everything is back.

ok, this absolutely reminds me of using indian whatsapp mods years ago. stickers, more features, local and portable backups... wouldn't try that as a member of the government though

Is it a coincidence that it reads almost exactly like SMERSH?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMERSH

Probably not. It's trendy to give edgy names to companies. See: Palintir.

You mean Palantir

And the name is not very edgy and a pretty exact mission description - it describes exactly what it grows from. Seeing stones aka cellphone data of everyone, collected, analyzed and turned into predictions for kings.

Not even pretending to not be evil is what makes it edgy.

To be honest, the good guys - turned out to be pretty embarrassing too.

The whole "everyone thinks like us" delusion bought with the surplus of a good times window distributed all around and its still willing to return to this delusional state of affairs.

The obvious plot-holes they reveal when it comes to we do not discuss nature (the bugs in the human mind are all fixable with education) and we do not discuss nurture (all cultures are equal, and equally capable - disregard the evidence before your eyes).

You don't get to juggle and drop so many balls and do not massively loose confidence!

The rule of (finger in ears) "La-La-La" is over - the problem is- the right is a reactionary mess, that has no solutions, analysis and tools to exploit these weaknesses.

> You don't get to juggle and drop so many balls and do not massively loose confidence!

You don't get to run all this circus if you don't intend to run it only as a circus. It's time to stop kidding ourselves that anybody mainstream is sincere and smart enough to move anywhere different from where they all are told to go.

Probably coincidence. The founder of the company was named Stephen Marsh.

There's a point at which coincidence and opportunity meet.

Huh? If the goal is compliance, you wouldn't use something that's worse for compliance - which is why the Legal and Security wouldn't like it. If it helped with compliance, they'd love it! So the reason can't be compliance.

The goal is the appearance of compliance, not actual compliance. Check the boxes.

Sounds like you've never done compliance.

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