this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024
265 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

37727 readers
563 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 115 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Meta ... can’t guarantee “what a third-party provider does with sent or received messages.”

I'm more concerned with what the first-party provider is doing with my sent or received messages when that first-party is Facebook!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

Meta ... can’t guarantee “what a third-party provider does with sent or received messages.”

We (Meta) can guarantee that we do all the bad stuffs to your data!

[–] [email protected] 89 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Please Signal, use this opportunity. I really want to be on Signal AAAAH

[–] [email protected] 76 points 8 months ago

They have already announced that they will not be interoperable with insecure messaging apps unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago (9 children)

Why not convince people to use Signal as well? Even my family has a group chat on Signal. Of course, it's a slow move with most people sticking to non-open chats. But it's worth the effort I would say.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah after two years even my parents and brother are on signal plus most of my close friends, the rest I just use regular sms

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Most of the world doesn't use SMS, they use WhatsApp. Plus, SMS is even worse than WhatsApp for privacy and security. And stopping using WhatsApp in most of the world is like not using email, so no "I don't have WhatsApp, you can only contact me through signal" is possible.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (6 children)

The inability to use it on two different phones kills it for me.

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Eh, my missus insisted we use Signal, but it's just flat out not as reliable. It misses messages very occasionally and it's always at the worst possible time.

Like I get that it's a tiny bit more private than Whatsapp, but I'm not running a terror cell or a paedo ring over here. I just want to know if she wants anything from the shop.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago

It's private and you can verify that, not to mention it's non-profit. WhatsApp claims to be private but Meta has broken promises before and doesn't let us look at source code. It's not a "tiny bit"

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (8 children)

I dislike when they say in news clips that Signal represents the “current gold standard” for E2EE chats, it doesn't, Signal is a helluva lot better than the commercial stuff that mines user data but there's stuff like SimpleX Chat that doesn't leak even metadata because it doesn't have it.

Still, this is a good thing, these megacorps have their iron grip on people because they have raised walls around their services making it painful for people to move to a different service, tearing down those walls can only help us all.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago

A standard is also about broad adoption though, so I don't think you can call SimpleX a standard yet.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

The standard is about the protocol, not every bit of the implementation. 3DH / X3DH and double ratchet, etc, are among the best for E2EE.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Does this mean third party apps will be able to interact with whatsapp?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

only when the service specifically requests it and agrees to Whatsapp's terms.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] onlinepersona 15 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (7 children)

Meta says that it will only allow third-party developers to use another protocol besides Signal, “if they are able to demonstrate it offers the same security guarantees as Signal.”

If matrix finally finishes implementing MLS, maybe they could convince meta to use it.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Would this mean I could finally ditch what's app and use only Signal?

[–] [email protected] 54 points 8 months ago (8 children)

No, Signal announced they won’t implement interoperable messaging.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (3 children)

kind of dumb they could get huge market share

[–] [email protected] 39 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, this worked so well for XMPP when everybody federated with Gmail chat.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] muhyb 34 points 8 months ago (15 children)

It's not. There is no privacy if you send your message to Whatsapp servers.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 months ago

There's even less privacy if I have to have the WhatsApp app installed on my phone to send that message.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago

You have the big plus of not having the WhatsApp app installed and snooping around with all those permissions it has.

load more comments (13 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago

Not if signal doesn’t want to support WhatsApp, and I don’t think they’re going to unfortunately :(

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Is there a reason this requirement doesn't apply to iMessage as well?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago (9 children)

I've read somewhere that iMessage wasn't considered "big enough" to be considerate a monopoly. Which is bullshit if you ask me.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 8 months ago

To be fair here in Europe I know no one who uses iMessage.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Kinda true in Europe though. Don't know anyone who uses iMessage, it's pretty much irrelevant. I know the situation in the US is quite different, but ultimately they don't regulate for the US market.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Its only big in the US, most of the planet only sees iMessage as that borderline useless app Apple bundles in their phones.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's annoying as fuck when I message my wife a video of our kids, it looks like dog shit on her iPhone. I have to instead send it on Whatsapp or signal. I hate apple

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (10 children)

That's because you're using SMS, that's not the fault of the messaging app. Using a third party messaging app is the correct way to go, it's encrypted, supports group chats, and bigger messages.

load more comments (10 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago

I don't think it's ever happened to me that anyone told me that it was inconvenient for them that I didn't have iMessage, compared to pretty much weekly exclamations of "But why can't you just use WhatsApp like everyone else!?"

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (2 children)

@Mysteriarch I deeply hope that there will be some connection to Matrix in the future.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›