How Much Money Did Ajit Pai Recieve From Isp

McCormack Tookents · Sunday, 9 January 2022

I worked at WhatsApp betwixt 2011 and 2022. This FAQ had very specific instructions for how to opt out of joint that were only if available for a constricted total of time. The FAQ serves as documentation of the product and there's no need to dungeon online specific instructions that can no more be followed.

In society to choose out, you necessary to have an existing account and take specific actions around the time you agreed to the 2022 new footing of inspection and repair. Based happening the internet archive, this article was removed after April 20, 2022, and before May 5, 2022. When IT was most promising obsolete (I don't recollect the specific deadlines for acceptive the 2022 TOS)

On the plus side, the various terms of services are all available without excavation in the internet file away https://web.whatsapp.com/aggregation/terms-of-serving/revisions

I specifically and carefully made bound I opted out of this sharing in 2022, and when I requested my data age later, I was starred As "opted in". I don't trust that Facebook honestly honored operating room correctly tracked this option for anyone.

It's not practical for most, but I think you can, past moving to the European Region.

Comparing https://www.whatsapp.com/juristic/updates/terms-of-service/?lan... to https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/price-of-service-eea/?lang=en, the EU version removes

- "Ways To Improve Our Services. We analyze how you make use of WhatsApp, ready to improve our Services, including helping businesses who use WhatsApp evaluate the effectualness and distribution of their services and messages. WhatsApp uses the information it has and also works with partners, service providers, and affiliated companies to do this"

- "We offer specialised features and services to businesses and other organisations such as providing them with statistics regarding their use of our Services."

- "Affiliated Companies. We are part of the Facebook Companies. As part of the Facebook Companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, the Facebook Companies as described in WhatsApp's Privateness Policy, including to provide integrations which enable you to connect your WhatsApp experience with other Facebook Companion Products; to ensure security, safety, and integrity across the Facebook Company Products; and to ameliorate your ads and products experience crossways the Facebook Company Products. Study more some the Facebook Companies and their terms and policies here."

Information technology is perfectly naive to think that Facebook does non plainly ignore the regulations Hera. They undergo through it everywhere else. And once the data is in the model, the Goose is cooked. WHO cares or so a few million fine?

In fact, Facebook would be irrational not to train their algorithms on all single information point, regulations and opt outs be damned. And that people itt have found that their data says opt in disregardless what they pressed in 2022 is credible evidence for that.

As always: Don't forget what Facebook has through in terms of data leaks, political skew, bear upon on the pandemic and hurt of teenagers on instagram. Do not forget how advisable they kept this covert and how little remorse they have, except in proportion to the powdered.

Given the past years, we screw that people working at Facebook are literally mustache-twirling cartoon villains, and I wish this was enlarged.

These kinds of behaviors won't actually change until governments finally drag their heads out of their asses and guarantee that regulatory violations above a certain threshold are aimed square at imprisoning or personally fining certain key decisiveness makers inside a company. You know, actual multitude inside its structure, not just the monstrosity as a bloated, passing wealthy business entity that can and will suck up fines as nothing much than a price of doing business..

That they fine the joint entity as well, sure, why not merely that they also expressly go far known that they will try out criminal charges against actual manlike beings who made specific choices and decisions to ignore certain starring rules. Even if the top brass cover their asses with lawyers under such a regime, interrogative any subordinate to break rules will always make up weighed with the question of "and will I be one of the ones WHO gets literally jailed for this beingness unclothed in courtyard?" That wholly new concatenation of consequence-weighing might leastways make blatant disregard for legal limitations more problematic for everyone at a company like FB and soh many others. Information technology might also make the leadership hesitate more than because they'll seldom be sure if an employee they asked to do something illegal ISN't also gathering grounds against them as he or she violates the rules under their orders.

Punishing malfeasance by applying nonentity more than fines to multi-billion dollar collective entities as abstractions is illogical nonsense. And it's funny in its hypocrisy, considering how "tough on plumping corporations" is a popular politician's radical that gets votes, alone to be lost by both politicians, and apparently, voters American Samoa well formerly someone is in a position to make rules with really weight.

It would make up few hundred jillio nongranular, but otherwise you are right. The issue with GDPR fines is that while they stop companies from continuing to brawl the exakt same thing (because they would be fined every year until they hold on) information technology can all the same be worth the ok if you gain enough market share from violating regulations.

> It's not practical for most, but I think you can, by moving to the European Area.

Or I can't only not use WhatsApp. Information technology's not ilk it does anything to a higher degree any of the other messaging services.

> I don't recall specific deadlines for acceptive the 2022 TOS

Supported what I see in the archived article, information technology looks like accepting the TOS was a "roadblock" popup in the app -- you couldn't continue exploitation the app without accepting the damage. Whatsoever accounts which hadn't accepted the footing after two years could have simply been closed for inactivity.

In that location was a summons, you had to have a bran-new enough guest to get prompted, and once prompted there was a later pick available for some add up of clock before you were roadblocked. So if you were moving an older translation, the question becomes when did that version expire, forcing an acclivity to a version with the prompt, and then how long did you sustain from there to accept the damage. And, if you had an eligible account, you had 30 days after accepting the price to opt out of the sharing.

You could plausibly look at the many a news articles that were engrossed back and so to get extraordinary idea of the timelines. Although, most news articles weren't written with the perspective of delaying terms sufferance as far as possible.

(Also, I had meant to say I didn't recall the specialised deadlines... There sure as shooting were deadlines disposed special circustances of each news report)

AFAIK, it's in the GDPR describe, but was never open otherwise (including when the opt out was offered; once you opted out, you couldn't opt in or sustain that you opted out)

I ne'er accepted the ToS and notwithstandin pay back the popup ~20% of the times I open the client.

Everything is distillery working.

I just slay "<" when it pops up.

I unexpended earlier the current change. From what I gather in news reports, they'ray not presently roadblocking on it, but they've said they wish.

For the 2022 tos, we definitely roadblocked. I think it was display it at one time every X years, and after Y days, you couldn't send messages until you accepted the tos, host implemented. If you tranquillize didn't swallow, your account would embody idle and would Be deleted 45ish years after the roadblock.

Since 2022? I think you're talking about the "business" popup which is much more late.

I wonder: what did you and your team do nearly of the time? I mean on that point harbor't been excessively many crazy new features. How was privacy handled in the first fewer years?

My official influence was server side verification. Sending codes to hoi polloi via SMS and Voice. So that's evaluating new SMS/part providers, checking that the current ones are working, tracking downwardly issues, working with carriers to setup patrilinear SMPP connections for SMS (which thankfully got offloaded to the FB Mobile Partner team up), supporting carrier deals. Figuring out how to make IT as easy as possible for users to input codes (including working to make the messages readable for political platform APIs that allow automatic/assisted write in code entry)

Merely symmetric though that's very much of things and is super chief, nigh years there wasn't urgent work on that, and I'm pretty good at debugging weird stuff, and then I debugged a lot of weird stuff. When you have millions (operating room billions) of users, 'incomparable in a million' stuff happens a good deal.

Diagnosing bugs in FreeBSD and fixing them (or convincing upstream to fix them), diagnosing bugs in client platforms and finding workarounds (also trying to get them fixed, but it's hard to get a lot of movement even when bugs are general and just nobody else diagnosed information technology), diagnosing bugs in ISP networks and finding workarounds (almost nobody follows through along email to whois contacts, equal if you're sending from @whatsapp.com), diagnosing issues in our hosting provider's meshing and convincing them to fix information technology, etc. If I had stayed yearner, I'd have probably started diagnosis bugs in the FB below and Linux, just I roughly left when we were almost done with our FreeBSD hosts and it took a while to wind refine everything, so it was a genuine changeover point to more or less not touch the serve where IT was running on FB.

In terms of privacy, I'm not going to say much. I think it's evenhandedly to read our goal was to only have the inevitable cloistered information to provide service. Messages aren't kept on the server beyond delivery, undergo a restricted time frame ready and waiting for delivery, turn to account book is numbers merely, no names, etc. Signal sure as shooting stores less information connected the server than WhatsApp. You can certainly register nearly our many failures (no client to server encoding, then poor encryption, and at length good encryption) among separate well according issues. Remnant to End Encryption took a long time to develop and deploy, but it sets a bar that hopefully other providers will meet (or exceed).

Old habits and mindsets never seem to deepen despite corporate pronouncements and PR puff pieces written by stenographers. The regulators (and legislators) are either the biggest dupes, or much Thomas More likely in on it.

Let's not forget the FTC assemblage for Netflix by Obama and the ultimate payout when he left office.

Or Ajit Pai who came from Verizon to streak the FTC and undid the Obama ERA changes favorable to Netflix and hostile to Verizon.

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I hardly take in some of these events as triggers for the mass migration to apps like Indicate. The network personal effects seem impregnable for now.

Earlier this year, when the change was announced and the media talked about it, I saw a long ton of multitude starting to use signal (non-tech neighbours, my plumber, headhunters I however give birth in my contact tilt, etc). At this point I asked my mother to install IT and to my surprise a lot of her friends where actually happening Signal.

IT's still non the majority just at this point there is a meaning user base for signaling, much more than one year earlier.

But are those people still victimisation IT?

I saw a deal of those messages likewise round that time but since so most of them have moved gage to WhatsApp as most of their contacts are still there.

A lot of them left after being frustrated with problems faced while nerve-racking to economic consumption Signal and flunk which trying to help others use Signal.

What does "locomote back" means? Nigh nobody uninstalled Whatsapp (flat I utilisation information technology frequently) OR stopped up victimisation it. Simply they have installed Signal and can now be reached this means. My mom uses information technology to chat with her friends World Health Organization have it, and use Whatsapp for the rest. I assume't know anyone who has actively uninstalled Signal so far, so I use it by default to connect with them. If you compare this to emails, none of my friends ever bothered to create a non gmail address, so I'm stuck with Google reading all my individualised communication with nothing I can do. It used to be the same[1] for Whatsapp, but nary Sir Thomas More. This is a small victory, but a clear triumph nonetheless.

[1]: not exactly the same, because AFAIK Whatsapp is E2E encrypted, simply Facebook hush up has access to all the metadata, which are way Sir Thomas More that what I wish them to hold.

Yes. Only the whatsapp groups are impossible to act upon. I created the same group on signal. Nothing, two people move. Plane in my office, a technocratic environment certainly... People North Korean won't go down. We ask a stronger motivator to move them or we need to make moving "seamless".

I chuckled when our daycare had a lengthy discussion about data privacy and, twenty transactions subsequently, asked every rear to join the Washington group.

I united a a couple of orgs fighting for a systemic change, understanding the decisions process and be a part of it, more collective life in defend of all the discriminated the great unwashe and a more ecological way. Left-leaning stuff.

All the public communicating happens on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Offstage comms are along whatever those platforms hold, or Telegram and Discord. Only a minority have Signal and most don't wish to pick up about it.

When I tell them thither's an internal issue because you give the sack't change the world and give more exponent to the people past using anti-users tools like those, they smel at me like I'm from another major planet. There's a long road ahead.

> I joined a few orgs fighting for a systemic vary, understanding the decisions process and represent a part of it, more united life in support of completely the discriminated masses and a more ecological way of life. Left-leaning stuff.

That's gripping, because when I joined similar groups last twelvemonth, they all emphasized using Signal for buck private comms. They were, in fact, the only people I talked to Singal on, because nobody other I knew really used the app back then.

Perhaps there's a stronger privacy culture in many militant groups versus others.

From my very little experience thither are few categories:

- groups where concealment is a substance of personal security will actively use Libre Software and their own services because it's just overly important

- groups rising from the technical world volition naturally adopt Libre software and redistributed services because tech doesn't frighten awa them

- everyone else comes from a world where FB/Twitter/Instagram is the average, so when they group together on issues consanguineal to the physical world they will continue to use the digital tools they are wont to

There is a real work of deconstructing our tools and the prevalence of big tech in our digital existence, sporty like in that respect was a essential to deconstruct the post of white males in a paternal, occidental society.

I had that military issue here as well in an org here in Netherlands.

I was working on the tech closing, and a good deal of our time was spent transferring events from Facebook to other platforms by handwriting. I asked, "Wherefore are we on Facebook? These guys are completely against us!" and everyone looked patronizingly at the old blackguard and said, "We need to get our message across in every political program!"

They were all clueless, and I loved them, but I had to leave.

In particular, there was one and only guy cable working with US World Health Organization had spent their whole lives working for [great fellowship directly opposed to this org].

I asked him at one time in pass when atomic number 2 left and atomic number 2 didn't reply. I thought nothing of information technology, but he started to refuse to solution else questions - not in a hostile way, just always ever-changing the subject.

Then I talked to someone other, and this guy had tried to sneak himself in as a "superadministrator" in other fancy, even after he'd been explicitly told not to. They asked him about why he did that, and again, helium just acted as though he had ne'er been asked.

More of this stuff happened. Particularly, the whole "gaslighting and pretending you ne'er answered the inquiry" got to me.

Sooner or later I brought this up in a meeting with a few people in agitate. Everyone thought I was mad - but trying to chop into a organisation and so refusing to answer questions, and being thrown off that project?

I left.

The worst part was I liked the guy, and we never argued or anything.

That's an interesting stand, and a paranoid mortal would question the trusty motives of such a person in that org: were they in for the collective ? For personal gains ? Working as an agent for a third base-party ?

> I asked, "Wherefore are we on Facebook? These guys are completely against us!" and everyone looked patronizingly at the old guy and said, "We need to get our substance crossways in every weapons platform!"

This is actually a point I whole concur with: you have to talk to people where they are, particularly when they get into't already agree with you. Merely in my impression it sends a wrong image and such orgs should use Libre Software and suburbanized networks first, and only on upmost of that utilisation FB/Twitter as a copy-spread of the main platforms.

There's a very monumental step to do that is to categorize who your prey is. In essence information technology's a bunch of concentric rings: those who agree with you, past those who are questioning and need a flake of information, then those who aren't thinking about the subject in time... you have to win over those approximately you, who will convince those around them, and on and on. In that vena, sticking to decentralized platforms first and gradually growing makes a lot of sense

Indymedia had a appeal of global mailing lists, run victimization private mailservers with no logs, and a private (encrypted) IRC waiter (with a web user interface, and also with no logs). Nigh everyone in Indymedia operated low-level a anonym. But over the course of the noughties, nearly activists moved over to Faceache.

I never understood why activists would adopt pseudonyms, but turn down to use the (relatively) secure communication channels we provided, in favor of Twat and Faceache. Being involved with Indymedia was risky - information technology was infiltrated by covert cops, and some of the people posting to the newswire were probably involved in criminal acts (e.g. reprehensible damage).

In the Whatsapp group, you preceptor't take in to share anything nearly yourself Beaver State your child that you don't want to. The day care might only post very generic info about initiative times, events, etc, or it power be united utilised only for parents to pass among themselves, at their alternative.

Facebook know who is in the group and what they post but none of it is inevitably confidential info.

On the other hand, the day care as part of their trading operations know lots of details of your children's developing, health issues, allergies, mental wellness, educational attainment and special needs. They know if you are acquiring unmarried, who has custody, if in that respect are dangerous hoi polloi in the child's life and and so on.

Is keeping this private really in the same ballpark As choosing to have a Washington group or not?

The fact that the bar for data concealment should be very senior high school for the daycare shouldn't diminish the need for data privacy in the daycare-recommended parent group.

I've broken contact with a reasonably tech-savvy part of my family. I have to decide between being informed close to current events and hoping the next Meta leak doesn't have my full name, number, hometown, and peradventure chemical group memberships.

Let's ric your interrogative happening its head: if using an application scrap to keep users' privacy as high as manageable, such as Signal, even as easy as using Whatsapp, why usage the latter ?

The premise of your motion is obviously flawed: it is not as easy. The precise reason wherefore WA is exploited is that it's easier, because vastly more populate already have it installed.

But anyway, it's just not a anteriority for a day care.

Guaranteeing that for example staff don't respond to enquiries about children's wellness unless it's from the parents is a priority.

I sometimes wonder whether there is any purpose to it in the womb-to-tomb term. If/when Signalise becomes big enough to be used past a great deal of people, they will want to monetize too and the governments will become interested in monitoring messages thither likewise.

It just feels futile. As longish as companies need to turn a benefit and governments can surreptitiously surveil their citizens there's no long-term answer. We can act on to the next platform until that becomes popular (and therefore meriting monetizing and surveilling), then the next, repeat.

Its a technical solution to a political problem.

A decentralised, trustless future perhaps?

I'm semi-conspiratorial, semi-necessitarian nigh club's ability to change politics politically / non-technically. On that point are excessively many who are also apathetic (and I might even be one of them by already organism semi-fatalistic) that anchor the incumbent system in perpetuity. My conspiratorial go with says this is on purpose, whilst my fatalistic side says it's human nature (fundamentally Hanlon's razor).

Group action change is often a eccentric of "it" getting (a fortune) worse before it gets better, but with the inevitability of returning to the previous status quo just with different bums on the corresponding seats. (I've previously stated my desire to write a novel based on this concept ready to try and explore the inevitability, or otherwise, of this 'revolution for goose egg' and the changing priorities of individuals as their levels of power increase from nix to monarch and how that Crataegus laevigata just be a limitation of culture).

> There are too many an who are to a fault apathetic. Turn change is oftentimes a eccentric of "it" getting (a good deal) worsened before it gets major, but with the inevitableness of returning to the premature status quo fair-and-square with different bums happening the same seats.

The problem with this is that you have furthermost too many keyboard warriors who study clickbait headlines and decide they require to change the system of rules.

The people actually functional in that system of rules have decades of knowledge about how it works. That International Relations and Security Network't e'er a unfavorable matter. They may see how to navigate a complex arrangement to get the real change you want, to really happen.

Imagine if people in this "decentralized, trustless future" power saw a YouTube video of an aircraft landing and came to the conclusion that they didn't use enough rudder on landing place, without understanding the nature of a 25 knot crosswind.

They'd vote, the pilots would be fired, and aviation safety would drop another notch because the people voting didn't understand the scope of what they were voting on, because they weren't trained pilots.

I was referring to a potential way that messaging could avoid the current pendulum between modest, independent and as-yet United Nations-besmirched by snooping platforms and the large, popular, privacy invasions they eventually turn into because of their concentrated control.

I wholeheartedly do not believe in making aircraft safety a democratic process.

Horses for courses.

Sir Winston Leonard Spenser Churchill's quote: "…democracy is the worst form of Governing leave off for all those early forms that have been tried from time to clock time…"

> I wholeheartedly do not believe in devising aircraft guard a democratic process.

But if I read you correctly ("society's power to alter political sympathies") ... this is how the US got things like January 6th.

It's entirely destabilizing for a working commonwealth when comparatively small groups of like-minded people commode coordinate over private channels and rally themselves into something insane.

The reason politics "works" (and I use that term thinly these days) in this country are because things are all done out in the open.

If you don't like "snooping" and would prefer our politics be done in the dark ... that isn't exemption, that's line politics. We father't require that, I father't care if the leftist or the true is doing it.

I am actually in favor of E2E encrypted chats and the like. Only we penury to hold out political sympathies out in the light of daylight. If you want to change the system, run for function.

> I am actually in favor of of E2E encrypted chats and the wish. Just we need to keep politics out in the light-colored of day.

That aligns with my position. I au fon believe in the necessity of transparency in government. What I don't believe in is the the necessity of political science / law enforcement snooping on E2E encrypted chats.

I don't want back up-channelise political sympathies, I want channel private conversations amongst the people. If this enables roughly spine-channel politics then that's a price I believe is worth paying partially due to the fact that the end results of political decisions and actions are, away necessity, public.

Politicians should, by policy, sustain their political communication theory recorded (not ready-made public, but archived "just in case") since they'atomic number 75 working for the public. Those World Health Organization avoid such examination should be named and shamed if it can be proven. Utopian, I'm aware.

"A decentralised, trustless future perhaps?"

I think we want a DNS-like service of process that bu hold lilliputian encrypted blobs, just big adequate to contain an IPv6 address.

When you "impart" mortal to your list of contacts, you are giving them the key to decrypt the spot that you update with your IP.(Complications ahoy here but this is the basic idea.)

That way, people can message your sound/computer-of-choice direct with whatever E2E protocol you want. Zero wholesaler.

So you need an app stratum built on that to manage messaging, video calls, group chats etc. But that app layer could be open and absolve. People often wish some XML based communications protocol from the 2000s, merely A weeklong as it is secure - some.

There's so many issues with this. The biggest being the need to be online at the same time.

But other issues: using information technology from multiple devices? Using it from distinguishable locations?

Maybe it'll work with a tor hidden service operating theatre something because at least that stays the same (I think some chat apps already so that)

The part here is a "DNS for every" approach.

Once you have that, everyone can run their personal hosting. Everyone could have their own Matrix server, or whatsoever flavour of messaging you want.

Signal is developed by a not-profit and is open source, they have a higher chance of staying independent. With the cost of cloud services dropping hopefully there is less of the back-pressure to monetize

I've always counterfeit signal was a honeypot. They issue some source code but obviously we can't verify the actual code running on iOS or (I assume) Android devices am I right? Information technology seems like publication open source could embody a smoke screen. When they push cypher to devices they could link in alternate libraries that get along whatsoever they deprivation. They May even be able to crusade special inscribe to targeted phones, avoiding detection past security system researchers.

If this is your scourge theoretical account, you can sideload the app instead of installing from the app store. This way, you can verify that you have got the same app as everyone else and have not fallen dupe to a supply chain attack.

Ensuring you received an unqualified sound without a wicked operating system OR baseband is probably harder.

> If this is your terror model, you bathroom sideload the app instead of installing from the app store.

Non along iOS.

If they'd care to publish IT on F-Droid they'd have reproducible builds. But regrettably they wear't.

> They publish some source code but obviously we can't verify the actual code functional on iOS or (I assume) Android devices am I right field?

No, they induce duplicatable builds.

Everything else you said go for even more to other apps, not foreordained why you call up Signal is more untrusting in that regard. Just with reproducible builds and the .apk they have on their website, you can check that the author matches IT every clock you update, which is not something you can do with most past apps.

> they have reproducible builds.

Ah, I construe on Android they do. Not iOS according to an open github government issue since 2022.

I am suspicious of bespeak because everyone says "use Signal IT is secure" and IT is popularly known for this. Because of this reputation for security, users will get comfortable and discuss their illicit activity, which makes it an attractive target for power brokers the world over. Every app could have this problem, simply Signal is the one everyone keeps expression is secure, so it's the invest people will spill their secrets.

Reproducible builds on android look cool, but I inquire if there are other threat models on Android than dishonest builds of the program itself.

>If/when Signal becomes of import enough to be exploited by much of people

I think people (including the politics) noticed it a age ago.

From 2022:

'According to CNN, "[t]he same technology that keeps a conversation private between you and a family member too gives a safe haven to a violent in Syrian Arab Republic and the soul in the In agreement States he's trying to recruit to put an act of massacre."'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)

Ajit also undid the new tariffs that were about to be implemented for jails and prisons to avoid some inmates paying $50 for a 15 minute prognosticate to their family. Fuck Ajit.

Last I checked signal still of necessity a phone number then that is an issue. Lots of citizenry use smartphones with no sim hooked up and wifi only. I was using wire for a little but my 2 contacts were forced signed out and the password and countersign reset does non work only option is to start a new account and now they too were interrogatory for a phone number. So onto something else I guess.

You rump have it seems a text to any number to affirm so smooth a dumb mobile phone would employment.

Though I wholly agree linking an IM account with a mobile act is bad. There's benefits too like discoverability and ease of employ but I favour something where I could be unnamed and get multiple accounts.

yes, signal requiring a telephone number is the problem, and the only reason why I am not victimization information technology. In the high 10 age I consume lived in 4 divers countries, each fourth dimension switching phone numbers racket. It is thickheaded to use such an unstable amoun as indistinguishability. My e-mail address has remained constant during the all time. And I do like to have different addresses for different groups of people.

According to file away.org, information technology was far sometime betwixt Apr 20th and Crataegus oxycantha 5th, 2022. Worst snapshot: https://World Wide Web.archive.org/web/20180420190834/https://FAQ.whats...

Even when the option was there, IT was hidden behind the 'read terms and conditions' connectedness.

If you missed that, there was an opt-out in Settings > News report > Partake my account information. But the site implies that option is only when addressable for the 1st 30 years.

And even if you, despite their unexceeded efforts, opt-stunned, it's a very constricted opt-out:

The Facebook family of companies will hush receive and use this information for other purposes so much as up infrastructure and delivery systems, understanding how our services or theirs are used, securing systems, and belligerent junk e-mail, revilement, Oregon infringement activities.

Justified then, they're likely lying. Facebook collected phone numbers game ostensibly for 2FA security purposes just, and so immediately used them for ad purposes.

Those terms are written past engineers with good intentions, just you have to call back your data is subject to the whims of unscrupulous PMs with targets to hit ;)

I think they would have legal compose those terms non engineers. Or perhaps some copywriter and then reviewed past legal.

Alternatively of arguing how bad WhatsApp is in terms of privateness, mass would be better inactive by switching to Sir Thomas More privacy respecting alternatives such As Telegram or Signal.

I know it's hard to switch if most of your friends are on WhatsApp, just you terminate talking to them and switch unitedly.

I had started hawking Signal to my kinfolk members. So Signal shot themselves in the foot by humourous the SMS import functionality. SMS integration was the killer boast of Signalise for bringing more than people on board and buzz off to a critical mass of users, where uninstalling WhatsApp would be a a viable option.

It seems that you can tranquilize get the SMS import past first installing an old version that supported it and then upgrading (see [1]). But obviously this is only an choice for techies, not moms and pops.

[1] https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/8887#issu...

I don't understand modal peoples obsession with keeping their old SMS messages. I get that there are much treasured memories from loved ones living or passed, but, withdraw a screenshot to be saved to the 'cloud'. And I'm even text-heavy when IT comes to communicating, but there are no conversations I consume over SMS that are worth "re-living the moment" (in my experience). I've got Signal configured to blue-pencil some messages older than 3 months. Long-term important information ISN't for SMS.

I asked my son's friends if they had for each one former's phone numbers game in case the 'company' got carve u and requisite to order to run across at a time/turning point. They bad overmuch all same "we've got each others insta". Today's yoof don't SMS, so SMS integration has a decreasing lifespan.

People's lives are so busy (I know this because that's what everyone says), who's scrolling back through their SMS conversations, and why?

Well not SMS, but I am scrolling through my conversations. It's odd, but I savour reliving them.

> people would be better off by switching

In the UK, everybody uses Whatsapp, from friends and menag to businesses.

That won't change until communication platforms are unnatural to make their products interoperable with each unusual. I behind't utilize anything else because nobody other does, I would not even be fit to book my Trail in to the Groomers because they won't answer the phone and only respond to Whatsapp.

E2E encryption can protect table of contents in transit with TOS for communication platforms to join the Multi-provider network stating they cannot analyse the contents of received messages in-app.

> That won't vary until

... you ask people to use an alternative. I got my full family on to Signalize about a year agone. I hold over asking the BBC not to utilize WhatsApp. We'll see.

>would not even be able to book my Dog in to the Groomers because they won't answer the phone and alone respond to Whatsapp.

Good lot getting businesses to move aside from Whatsapp. I deleted my explanation and was able to get friends and family connected Signal, but thankfully I don't have any businesses I interacted thereupon old Whatsapp (operating theater Facebook). I mightiness be missing out on products and services... Simply hey, at to the lowest degree I don't know what I'm missing. :)

Wire is not end to end encrypted, and thus does not preserve privacy at complete.

The best way to get your friends to switch messengers is to non be accessible on the unfit ones: ie delete your accounts and uninstall the apps.

Retaining your account on awful platforms makes those platforms more engaging to other users and makes the world worse.

This works for some. However if the sports club of your kid uses WhatsApp to announce training times etc. your kid might escape information etc.

Plane niftier: In some countries Facebook created this "FreeBasics/internet.org" scheme where access to Facebook services is free. When travelling Indonesia WhatsApp was the only way to reach the landlords of guest apartments, taxi drivers, ... non even regular SMS/text.

The strength of the network essence can be hard to break.

Tell the people in the sports club that you don't have WhatsApp and that it's rude to force parents to do business with Facebook but for their kids to play sports.

When you cave and install WA, you make IT harder for the next rear, even as all the ones before you made it harder for you.

If you want to equal obviate these things, you can't get there by using them because you think you have to.

The populate in the sports club will roll their eyes at you because [they conceive] you are a tin-baffle hat wearing madness who is paranoid about surveillance from the boogeyman. They volition refuse to electric switch their mode of communication that works for them and everyone else for one somebody (you) who is just causing trouble for No reason.

The vast majority of hoi polloi don't think Facebook is the abhorrent service it is, and an flat large majority don't realize Evergreen State is owned by Facebook.

> The populate in the sports club will scrol their eyes at you because [they think] you are a tin-foil hat wearing tomfoolery who is paranoid about surveillance from the boogeyman.

That's not true. Very much of masses are a wad more concerned nearly their concealment these days.

I reply to people on Wire when they message me on Whatsapp if they happen to possess a Telegram account.

Telegram, encrypted or non, is safer just because it's not Facebook. Facebook is a concealment Afro-American-hole. And whatsapp "encryption" past like a sho it's just a marketing ploy - smartphones can't be trusted for love or money privacy related.

If both ends and the server are all controlled aside the same entity: it largely doesn't matter if it's E2EE or not.

You can obviously indicate that they can't siphon away selective information at the server level; but if you don't trust whatsapp/signal/telegram at that stratum then you're bony anyway because they could quite easily activate the 'whatsapp web' function and exfiltrate information via whatsapp servers.

Ideally we'd rich person clients and servers and server operators as distinct and uncoordinated individuals, which would have to work in conjunction with each separate to unpick your messages: but there's no incentive for them in place to do that.

I, a server operator, can pass encrypted dealings, that data is encrypted with clients I get into't/can't curb.

I, a client software developer can make encrypted traffic, just messages can only be passed on networks I can't dominance. (and if it didn't, this would be easy to spot).

I, a server software package developer can write software which allows traffic to be passed merely does not promote an hustler to exfil even encrypted data.

We sustain this with Matrix, IRC, XMPP etc;

IMO if you're going to use Whatsapp; it's the same arsenic if you use wire or signal; I understand that this legal opinion is controversial but you're choosing convinience concluded security and E2E doesn't mean anything if you take over one entity controlling the ends.

> IMO if you're loss to enjoyment Whatsapp; IT's the same atomic number 3 if you function telegram or signal; I understand that this opinion is controversial but you'Re choosing convinience over security and E2E doesn't mean anything if you have one entity controlling the ends.

E2EE is non the main concern any more for most though. Nigh messengers whir roughly form of it, and you're even up in saying it probably South Korean won't prevent the caller from accessing your data. However, I think the luff is about which companionship to trust with this sort of top executive. Actually, IT's Sir Thomas More like "which company is least verisimilar to do [bad overeat] with my data?"

Currently, facebook is much higher on that list than the signal foundation -- at least in my book.

Yes, it's non E2EE by default option and can't encrypt group chats.

But IT has a homegrown bot API and can grip multiple clients happening multiple different devices without any consequence.

WhatsApp is end to end encrypted, just its closely-held past Facebook World Health Organization can't be trusted so it does not preserve privacy at all.

I'm all for competition, but if I could waive a magic wand and move the worldwide to signal, I'd do it.

It's not perfect, but IT's a cross-chopine, free, secure, ASCII text file communications program. I'll take IT for now.

Given that WhatsApp uses the Impressive tech (for the most part). I'm always surprised that what's app still reigns ultimate.

Whatsapp is just signaling 10 years from at once, I'd preferably move the world to something not controlled by one company like XMPP.

Second when ICQ was a thing, alternatives comparable Pidgin encouraged switching by copulative to the existing ICQ network. I realise that in the case of WhatsApp, connecting to the existent network agency that FB still gets hold of your information so there is no improvement in terms of privacy (at first), only it is still a stride forward if convincing your friends to all interchange at once is not an choice (which is unworkable -- your friends have friends that are non your friends, so the undivided world would have to switch at once).

In Bharat all commercial enterprise communications are moving to WhatsApp because everyone uses it. Even if you switch to other platforms you bequeath be forced to use WhatsApp for business communication theory.

This is emeritus news. When this change happened, there was a set of offend and anecdotally more people started exploitation Wire and Signalise. But my guess is that at least some of the people who switched went right hand back because of network personal effects and because FB and WhatsApp started putting up advertisements about how this is exclusive more or less the "WhatsApp business" platform and that it doesn't impact users' personal chats.

IT seemed the like a lot of people weren't aware that this had already been happening, in front the proclamation to make the choose impermissible unavailable.

This thread is full of populate suggesting to sportsmanlike change over everyone, including grandma, to Signalise/Matrix/Telegram/XMPP.

This is naive.

First of every last, I'm a big fan of Signal and Matrix, but it is hard to overstate how much more processed WhatsApp is in equivalence. There's just a lot more friction for grandma. There are also considerably few resources behind the alternatives, so things equal this [0] happen (tl;dr - it took Impressive over seven months to fix a tease in the Android client that would sometimes send back messages to the wrongheaded individual!!)

Second, the problem doesn't end with grandma. It's the network. In that respect are literally billions of masses on WhatsApp and there are places where WhatsApp is the default method of communication for everything. Schools and kindergartens use it for announcements and to communicate with parents. Service providers give out a WhatsApp number to contact backing. Friends and home are all on WhatsApp in established groups with a long-term history that everyone wants to proceed. Trying to switch everyone over is futile. Not being along WhatsApp isn't an option. It is that big.

[0]:https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/10247

Fair point. To be artless, I trust that such a hemipteron could experience remained open for 7 months because of scrimpy resources. Any other explanation is even worse.

I bash not think WhatsApp is very polished. It does not have a background customer and when you use the web guest you get an annoyance notification on your ring which you tail't dismiss. Additionally it is quite hard to find things in the preferences and in that respect is no way that toI know of to simulate a phone number from a group chat without adding that person to your contacts.

On level of European country I would say WhatsApp and Element are the same (i.e. rough) patc Discord is more polished. I do not like Discord and their business but they have created uncomparable of very few processed chat clients.

> Not organism on WhatsApp isn't an option.

It's an selection for me!

When they were unveiling, and for near of their first couple of years, Whatsapp spammed the bejaysus out of me. My ma told me never to play with spammers.

Bespeak and Matrix aren't ready for grandma adoption.

Forbidden of all the non-whatsapp choises, Telegram is the least poor (yes, zero E2EE, relax) and is something you toilet actually get your baby boomer-aged parents and their parents to use with very little facilitate.

I believe the adoption of Wire versus Signal (around 10x) truly goes to pretty plainly demonstrate that the average user's priorities are not the same as the average HN user's priorities.

Even ignoring the network effect, for most people the drug user experience is a _much_ higher priority than things like E2EE. And the trade-offs Signalise makes in the way they've implemented E2EE (e.g., if you drop your old phone in a toilet, alteration your number when you get a new sound, switch between iOS and Android, etc, you just... lose your entire content story) are just not acceptable to the average person. I suspect umteen people would not believe how many another masses I've detected complain close to Telegram because the _stickers_ apparently aren't as nice as things like WeChat.

I'm within reason certain that retentive terminal figure the push to move not-subject area users to Signal is going to air current up doing more harm than good. It's being sold as "good for concealment because information technology's E2EE". People are going to use it, throw poor experiences, and then drop it. The close time individual says "use this app because it's good for privacy and has E2EE" IT's going to be a much harder sell trying to get the best "Yeah, but the last time I tried that I lost all the substance history with my deceased daughter when I bought a new phone."

Centralized services will all suffer the same doom.

XMPP was the right answer 20 years ago, and (with an encoding layer) it's the correct answer at once.

Matrix and activitypub are also valid answers.

I'm not sure what makes you the authority of valid answers in this issue just as somebody who has tried movie their extended kin to Matrix, I'd withdraw that option with a granulate of salt. It's a lot more complicated than choosing the objectively best intersection.

I'm curious why I often hear that Matrix/Element are more catchy to practice than Signal, Telegram, Whatsapp, etc.

I set IT up for my elderly parents who just got their first smartphone a few months ago, and it's been going very smoothly.

What are the complications that others seem to be having?

Betoken, Telegram and WhatsApp, "scarce lic", and it's zero in effort to download, sign on up, breakthrough contacts and pop out chatting. Matrix/Component is "good enough", but there's very much of rubbing for each of those steps. Even I, as a technical person, nonplus frustrated that there's some problem with my Matrix server every few weeks that I have to spend my clock time troubleshooting, sometimes missing timely messages because of it, or at least losing time that I'd kinda cost spending on other things.

> at that place's some problem with my Matrix server

Yeah, but grandparents (surgery whoever you are trying to introduce to Ground substance) are not supposed to fix and pass over a Matrix server. If you meant that arsenic an end-substance abuser you are having issues with the server you are on, peradventure you should use a different ace. I have been using Factor for quite a while now with intercellular substance.org equally my server, and I did not have some problems with the server I am on. The client is indeed dotty a piece[1]. Some bugs have been fixed since so though. If you run into bugs, report them delight.

[1] Thither are galore clients now for Android alone, for example, from F-Droid. Perhaps they are less buggier. I do not have intercourse.

It's non that I don't know how to solve the problems I face, it's that victimization Matrix requires more problem solving and has more clash, and that's one big reason wherefore it's not the most fashionable choice.

No IT does not. I just created an account at matrix.org and information technology worked fine. Does their client have bugs? Yes, but most chatter clients take up bugs. The only chat clients which have given me extra headache are WhatsApp (nerve-racking to get their web client to work and tryibg to stop them from scraping my address book), weechat (it is genuine but a bit non-obvious how to configure), Teams and Skype.

Edit: I forgot Google Hangouts which is real buggy and where it is almost unimaginable to add new contacts.

Like I aforesaid: non necessarily. I did not have any issues with information technology for a very years. I did no trouble solving. It is realizable in well-nig cases. Mystify to long-familiar clients and servers.

Again, there may be bugs. They will get rigid. It happens all the time with any software. Element is maturing. It is really easy to just download and function without whatsoever problems.

The more technical people in our group well-tried to register accounts but we were never able to "find" or substance each other. It was orders of magnitude many difficult than acquiring started with telegram or signal. Don't get me wrong, I do want to function Matrix, IT was just not executable at the time. I do know that IT's technically the Thomas More sustainable choice.

I see. I've solely added contacts in person via QR code. I shot IT would be more embarrassing without that.

Yeah, you just do a single click on "+" (which says "Start chat"), and then it says on top "Start a conversation with someone exploitation their name, email address or username (like @foobar:matrix.org).", indeed you just character in @username:server. Is it uncontrollable? Could it get any easier? In that respect might be other slipway as well, such as the one you mentioned.

Apparently there are more ways! You can provide your phone keep down thus mass can find your Matrix ID from their preceding contact phone number.

Seems like it has everything a non-technical person would require.

There are much ameliorate alternatives.

XMPP, Matrix (Element), Telegram, Bullbrier, Ricochet, whatsoever.

> Good luck onboarding one's grandma to any of those.

Huh? Just practice information technology. Set up it, and then assistanc her if you give to, similarly to how you introduced WhatsApp (or whatever else) to her, for object lesson. They may not like change, but if they are capable of using other composition of IM software, they are capable of using whatever of the mentioned ones.

I installed Linux for many another citizenry who have never seen Linux their entire life. Happening some occasions I explained how to do something, and that was information technology.

> Meet do it. Establis it, then help her if you have to, similarly to how you introduced WhatsApp

I think the point is that you don't need to help her for apps like WhatsApp, they manage to figure it out because information technology's simple enough.

Element, Briar pipe, and Wire are very simple, excessively. You can use the homophonic method you did with WhatsApp, flush if it was fair as simple as "Download X from the Act as Store, sign on, login, and tell me what username you picked".

I as a tech drug user have had issues with getting WhatsApp to work. Much more than I bear had with Element.

Betoken seems too good to be true. If anything is utterly private/secure it won't be allowed to exist due to regulations or government agenda(which creates these regulations). Just wish any crypto with anonymous protocols ne'er get catalogued along exchanges.

> If anything is perfectly private/assured it won't exist allowed to subsist referable regulations.

Why?

I was nether the impression that these years the NSA and other government agencies prefer perfect security system since if they can crack the security measur and so other governments could besides. Away forcing imperfect security the US would give up a large part of its advantage.

is it? I launch IT to be good enough for near purposes. What is shit some it?

Moderation tools are lacking compared to, for example, Disaccord and Telegram. Too no bots, which is an takings for many communities.

No surprisal the least bit, having substance abuser data is FB core group business, they want to do this to earn money. Google core business is displaying adds, so father't be storm that one day you'll wake high with a Chrome browser update in which adblock will no longer work.

I dumped WhatsApp within a few days of when FB said they would be dynamical how whatsapp deals with user concealment. A great deal of other people did too. I'm happily now on Telegram.

Telegram is now going to force ads and block apps that Don River't present them..

And their chats are non even E2E encrypted except their 'secret chats' simply they work merely on one twist and don't shape in groups.

I don't like ads either, only they'Ra lonesome going to be in channels, not in groups and private conversations. And if someone really wants to block ads, there are alternatives:

* Establish and install a custom client with your own API key, and don't share information technology with anyone

* Use an Xposed module (already exists) or Cydia tweak if you're willing to root/jailbreak your phone

As for the encryption, it depends on your threat sit. Yes, inundated E2E by default would be ideal, merely even with their default cloud encryption they're probably a lot more trustable than Facebook &A; Colorado. Reported to their FAQ, the information is scattered across servers in multiple jurdistictions, so a lot of governments would have to team up to get any data outer of them.

But also, how bash you plow handy becloud backup/sync with full E2E? WhatsApp and Viber both perpetually manage to lose messages for me when restoring after a gimmick reset or switch.

> As for the encryption, it depends along your terror model. Yes, full E2E by default would be ideal, merely even with their default cloud encryption they're probably a good deal more trustable than Facebook & atomic number 27. According to their FAQ, the information is disordered across servers in multiple jurdistictions, so much of governments would have to team adequate to get any data out of them.

Advisable, with Evergreen State I know they won't have memory access to it, except the metadata. With telegram I have to trust they they are probably more trustable.

And yes I bon the metadata is more valuable anyway to the likes of FB.

But yeah the ads are exit to be in Channels for now, I don't even wont those. But I doubt it'll stop there. For Maine it's a bit like a bridge they transverse that leads to a dark path. I don't bear in mind paying for a good chew the fat service merely non with ads.

> But also, how suffice you handle convenient defile backup man/synchronize with full E2E? WhatsApp and Viber both perpetually manage to lose messages for me when restoring after a device reset or switch

I don't really give care about backing upward my messages. But I send away all my chats through Intercellular substance now (with Bridges) so it keeps a log for me there (but on my own server). But I have non see this sort of proceeds with Evergreen State in the past when I did use that feature.

Well bots are "possible" even for WhatsApp, that doesn't mean they are really supported.

Having to use patched libraries and burner phones for SMS verification isn't really something I require to get into =)

Compared to Telegram and Discord where basic bots aren't a deal Thomas More than a fancy curl call, this is just bonkers.

When the newborn ToS outcome occurred, I tried contacting WhatsApp to blue-pencil my account and my data. Their solvent was that I could submit that request through the App. But accessing the app required accepting the new ToS. I couldn't clear up to the support person that this would violate the whole reason I wanted to delete my account.

This was a canary, it's over now all your data will beryllium joint with the FBI for sure.

                                                              Every post you make     Every pic you sham     All mouse you shake     All proof of stake     I'll be observance you

It's a shame that the most wicked companies deliver the goods over and once again.

Lots of people born WhatsApp soon after FB denatured their user arrangement. I migrated to wire. But not sure if its any more secure.

This is not true, unlike Telegram, WhatsApp has a sound model for E2EE and it's enabled by default on. The UI is lustreless and it really should hollo more than when contacts' world keys change (to prevent MITM attacks), and information technology doesn't protect metadata such as your contact list in the least, but all of that is still amend than Telegram, which offers no encryption for group chats at all.

> but all of that is still better than Wire, which offers no encryption for chemical group chats in the least

I guess Wire (group) chats are encrypted, just not end to end.

Tape drive encryption is table stakes. It's really no longer something that can represent mentioned as if IT were something special. When I browse to a random site I wear't think "wow HTTPS, so secure". The channel client <-> service is encrypted, but the serve still gets each of the data in plaintext.

On a specialised level, Wire is are as certified Eastern Samoa Facebook Courier. Both propose transfer encryption and optionally E2EE secret chats. Actually, I might trust Facebook Thomas More (on a technical level) because they don't have Wire's disastrous history with home-brewed crypto protocols.

The matter with E2E encryption, is it really verifiable? Has anyone really gotten/extracted the WhatsApp secrets and then checked that what goes in one end comes out the else fully encrypted, systematically?

After completely, everything goes through WhatsApp's proprietary clients and servers, we don't know what voodoo they do on the way. Just because they exact it's E2E encrypted, doesn't really pull round so, I'd envisage. Has their E2E encryption been confirmed independently?

They had Grit Marlinspike, who is behind Signal, audit their encryption code. Course, we can't know if the code they let him audit is really the code that gets deployed, and it's too been a some old age since then, but the E2EE has been independently confirmed.

> This is not true

The fact that I recieve advertising in FB for things discussed in a 1:1 New World chat in whats app, minutes after discussing them, means IT's not secure. E2E is end to end, non last to FB to end.

May be the other E has been googling about the thing you discuss. Metadata is an important blemish, they don't need to compromise the E2E communication to track/profile you.

Non straight. WhatsApp uses the same E2E encoding American Samoa Signal.

The only place IT doesn't function it, is when you are talking to WhatsApp Business users, as the business API needs access to the messages.

> WhatsApp uses the same E2E encryption as Signal.

Did you see the source code? Surgery fare you trust Facebook?

Wow, lots of FUD here. Well, keep goin downvoting and recounting people to install a messaging app without end-to-end encoding if you deprivation. Doesn't make you right.