How WhatsApp enables multi-device capability(engineering.fb.com)
engineering.fb.com
How WhatsApp enables multi-device capability
https://engineering.fb.com/2021/07/14/security/whatsapp-multi-device/
145 comments
"Do people not consider their chat histories valuable?"
No, I consider them a positive liability and delete messages/conversations as soon as they're done/actioned.
When the Brown Shirts come to get you, it'll be your own message history they hang you with. (Only slightly :))
Question: You have your SMS history going back a decade. How many times has that proven useful?
I, too, used to keep messages & emails "forever" until I realised that it was doing nothing for me but becoming a maintenance burden. Now I have "max 24 months" retention policy and have never once needed to retrieve an email older than that.
No, I consider them a positive liability and delete messages/conversations as soon as they're done/actioned.
When the Brown Shirts come to get you, it'll be your own message history they hang you with. (Only slightly :))
Question: You have your SMS history going back a decade. How many times has that proven useful?
I, too, used to keep messages & emails "forever" until I realised that it was doing nothing for me but becoming a maintenance burden. Now I have "max 24 months" retention policy and have never once needed to retrieve an email older than that.
Same. After reading the first point my reaction was "Why would I want that?"
Of course, people are different, but I think in digital world there are much more hoarders than in physical.
I save love letters / emails / texts, tax docs
All else, purge every year
All else, purge every year
> When the Brown Shirts come to get you, it'll be your own message history they hang you with. (Only slightly :))
There are certainly some countries where this isn't a hyperbole. But in all others, suggesting that Nazis might come take you away because of messages you've written in the past is in pretty bad taste, IMO.
There are certainly some countries where this isn't a hyperbole. But in all others, suggesting that Nazis might come take you away because of messages you've written in the past is in pretty bad taste, IMO.
Would it have been in bad taste to say it during Hindenburg's administration? Your personal data may be more durable than benign government.
tell it to those cancelled for decade old tweets
> There are certainly some countries where this isn't a hyperbole.
> suggesting that Nazis might come take you away because of messages you've written in the past is in pretty bad taste
These two statements seem conflicting. If we're already seeing it in places why should we not be concerned? It may be unlikely to happen here and to us, but why take the chance? The risk-reward tradeoff is extremely unbalanced. Like the above commenter said, how often do you go back in your history?
As a more real west experience we do see morals changing and we have been going through cultural changes. There are plenty of people who have had tweets uncovered with positions they themselves no longer agree with. That's a question people are trying to address right now but it is a difficult one to have because it is so heated. But it does boil down to "do people change opinions?" Personally I think the answer is obvious. But it is undeniable that history gets people in trouble, even if those histories were popular opinions at the time. (I wouldn't draw parallels to Brown Shirts with these instances as there's a big difference in scale and power, but I would draw parallels to Brown Shirts for countries with authoritarian rules where text histories are large liabilities and can get you killed or jailed).
> suggesting that Nazis might come take you away because of messages you've written in the past is in pretty bad taste
These two statements seem conflicting. If we're already seeing it in places why should we not be concerned? It may be unlikely to happen here and to us, but why take the chance? The risk-reward tradeoff is extremely unbalanced. Like the above commenter said, how often do you go back in your history?
As a more real west experience we do see morals changing and we have been going through cultural changes. There are plenty of people who have had tweets uncovered with positions they themselves no longer agree with. That's a question people are trying to address right now but it is a difficult one to have because it is so heated. But it does boil down to "do people change opinions?" Personally I think the answer is obvious. But it is undeniable that history gets people in trouble, even if those histories were popular opinions at the time. (I wouldn't draw parallels to Brown Shirts with these instances as there's a big difference in scale and power, but I would draw parallels to Brown Shirts for countries with authoritarian rules where text histories are large liabilities and can get you killed or jailed).
> No, I consider them a positive liability and delete messages/conversations as soon as they're done/actioned.
Does other side delete it too? Otherwise if you delete you create a bigger liability in case the other side start claiming things that have not happened. For that reason it's vital to keep an audit trail and of course you need to have good op sec with that.
Does other side delete it too? Otherwise if you delete you create a bigger liability in case the other side start claiming things that have not happened. For that reason it's vital to keep an audit trail and of course you need to have good op sec with that.
If we're considering it a liability issues then I'm not sure this question isn't super important. You can't control that side. But you can control your side and reduce your liability. It won't reduce it to zero, but clearly it has reduced your liability.
This is especially true if we're talking about targeted attacks it is a lot harder to find all your previous contacts and then search through those to find something to hang you on. Your side is consolidated and easily searchable. The other side is distributed.
Though I kinda miss old text messaging where you only had 250 texts max.
This is especially true if we're talking about targeted attacks it is a lot harder to find all your previous contacts and then search through those to find something to hang you on. Your side is consolidated and easily searchable. The other side is distributed.
Though I kinda miss old text messaging where you only had 250 texts max.
> control your side and reduce your liability
if your actions (or messages) are a liability, then why make them in the first place?
If you deleted your messages, it doesn't delete the record (from someone else's phone, for example, like a screenshot).
If the adversary is powerful enough (like a state actor), it matters not what your phone history is, because they can pin something on you anyway.
if your actions (or messages) are a liability, then why make them in the first place?
If you deleted your messages, it doesn't delete the record (from someone else's phone, for example, like a screenshot).
If the adversary is powerful enough (like a state actor), it matters not what your phone history is, because they can pin something on you anyway.
> if your actions (or messages) are a liability, then why make them in the first place?
They may not be to begin with. Think changing morals or changing governments. Also I really hate this sentiment in general. Your solution is to just censor yourself. We're talking about about the abstract here.
> If you deleted your messages, it doesn't delete the record (from someone else's phone, for example, like a screenshot).
I feel like I literally addressed this above in my second paragraph. It's much harder to search multiple phones than a single phone that has all the information consolidated. Security is not about being bulletproof but that your are sufficiently difficult to attack. This distributed version of your data is harder to attack. That's the advantage.
> If the adversary is powerful enough (like a state actor), it matters not what your phone history is, because they can pin something on you anyway.
1) better something made up than something real. One is harder to fight and requires more resources for them.
2) what's the point of this comment? Are we just supposed to give up? No fighting back? This statement is always going to be true but isn't a meaningful trump card.
They may not be to begin with. Think changing morals or changing governments. Also I really hate this sentiment in general. Your solution is to just censor yourself. We're talking about about the abstract here.
> If you deleted your messages, it doesn't delete the record (from someone else's phone, for example, like a screenshot).
I feel like I literally addressed this above in my second paragraph. It's much harder to search multiple phones than a single phone that has all the information consolidated. Security is not about being bulletproof but that your are sufficiently difficult to attack. This distributed version of your data is harder to attack. That's the advantage.
> If the adversary is powerful enough (like a state actor), it matters not what your phone history is, because they can pin something on you anyway.
1) better something made up than something real. One is harder to fight and requires more resources for them.
2) what's the point of this comment? Are we just supposed to give up? No fighting back? This statement is always going to be true but isn't a meaningful trump card.
To answer your question: I don't value chat histories that much. In the early days people didn't walk around with tape recorders to record everything everybody was saying either. If there is something really important said in a chat, you could make a screenshot, the same way you would take a note on paper with a pencil in pre-digital times, but how often did that happen? To write down an address for example, but you could put that in the digital equivalent of the rolodex, like Contacts.app or Notes. You could even go as far as to save information in a personal CRM like Monica.
People did used to write each other letters though, which they would often keep. I definitely have some correspondence over chat that falls in that category. Perhaps I should go back to writing such messages on physical media.
If it's really something worth keeping I would probably print it out to keep it safe, instead of letting it disappear in a continuing chat, with the risk of losing it, because your data is on somebody else's server and you're not in control of it.
printed text is not going to be as durable as letters of the past
A lot of the replies I see to this are people talking about their personal chat histories. For various reasons the trend these days is to not consider those valuable*
Where chat histories are valuable and where you see a "store and index it all" approach is enterprise chat. Slack, Google Hangouts Chat, etc, store and archive all the data because that is the collective wisdom of past and present employees and it is valuable to search through. Depending on the industry (i.e. Finance requires this via FINRA) it may even be mandatory to record all communications.
* unless you are moving to a new device, but even then it is rare to search that far back in history.
Where chat histories are valuable and where you see a "store and index it all" approach is enterprise chat. Slack, Google Hangouts Chat, etc, store and archive all the data because that is the collective wisdom of past and present employees and it is valuable to search through. Depending on the industry (i.e. Finance requires this via FINRA) it may even be mandatory to record all communications.
* unless you are moving to a new device, but even then it is rare to search that far back in history.
"Do people not consider their chat histories valuable?"
Personally, no. I treat it like a real life conversation, if it's something I need to note later on, then I'll make a note of it outside of the chat app
Personally, no. I treat it like a real life conversation, if it's something I need to note later on, then I'll make a note of it outside of the chat app
I go one step farther and have conversations auto-expire after a certain amount of time (e.g. a week) for both parties. Scripta volent.
WhatsApp on iOS does backup all history, allowing you to transfer it to a new iOS device.
Transferring history between iOS and Android is a work in progress, it works now from iPhone to Samsung devices (for reasons I don’t really understand), general support is supposed to be rolled out the coming months.
Transferring history between iOS and Android is a work in progress, it works now from iPhone to Samsung devices (for reasons I don’t really understand), general support is supposed to be rolled out the coming months.
I paid $20 for some software reviewed on Reddit I found searching “transfer WhatsApp messages from android to iOS”, no root needed. It somehow transferred everything including media, like magic. It’s a black box and who knows what exploits they are using in the background, but just wanted to chime in and let you know it’s possible but not out of the box.
If anyone is interested, I can dig up and share the software/company I purchased from.
If anyone is interested, I can dig up and share the software/company I purchased from.
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>2. It's impossible to move chat history from an android device to an iOS device. And moving from ios to android is only possible with certain samsung phones.
It is possible to do this with third party apps. Incredibly sketchy looking apps I should add, but they do work. I've done it several times both ways.
It is possible to do this with third party apps. Incredibly sketchy looking apps I should add, but they do work. I've done it several times both ways.
Same I paid $20 for some software recommended on Reddit. No clue what it did or exploited but it transferred everything including media from android —> iOS. Best $20 I ever spent, had a lot of chats with info I search for periodically.
I also consider my chat history valuable. Is there a reason why you don't use WhatsApp's built-in backup mechanism? On Android it backs up to Google Drive, I believe. But yeah, moving history backups between Android and iOS isn't possible, which is pretty lame.
You can transfer your chat history if you back it up on Google Drive and pull it from the new device.
I suppose you don't want to do that, maybe because it gives a third party access to your history (although it should be E2EE), but I am writing this for readers who may stumble upon this
I suppose you don't want to do that, maybe because it gives a third party access to your history (although it should be E2EE), but I am writing this for readers who may stumble upon this
iOS don't let you backup or restore from google drive, only iCloud
Android only let you use google drive. There's no way to transfer between the two
Android only let you use google drive. There's no way to transfer between the two
1) It seems the raw databases are encrypted in `/storage/emulated/0/Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Databases` so even being rooted isn't sufficient to dump them.
Moving from Android to iOS and vice versa has been a nightmare since forever and I don't blame WhatsApp for that.
Pretty much everything else has transferred over very smoothly for me so far. My passwords are all in Bitwarden so I had instant access to those. And my contacts are all in Google Contacts which transferred similarly easily. I've had to log in to a lot of apps, but other than that it's been pretty easy apart from whatsapp.
No, I clear my history from time to time manually. It is very useful at times (to search through) but also not something I want to stick around.
This feature (or lack thereof) is pretty much my biggest gripe against Signal. I still don't understand why they won't let you use the same account in paralel on an Android tablet. And the weird part is they provide no explanation for this limitation while this limitation does not exist for iPad users.
If this new feature proves to work as advertised, I might as well sell my soul to the Facebook devil and go back to WhatsApp full time due to how frictionless the experience is (and everyone in the EU already being on it), and leave Signal only for private info sharing, as I grew tired of convincing people in my circles to move to Signal for privacy only to receive complaints that X,Y, Z features from WhatsApp are either missing, buggy or super frustrating to use on Signal. Oh, and receiving calls on Signal for Android is a mess (known bugs for years) where some calls just won't come through to my phone even if the desktop client is ringing, only to have it show up as a missed call notification on my phone a few minutes later. Unacceptable.
I do support the Signal team for their work and what they stand for, but my patience (and that of those around me I convinced to switch from WhatsApp) is wearing thin.
If this new feature proves to work as advertised, I might as well sell my soul to the Facebook devil and go back to WhatsApp full time due to how frictionless the experience is (and everyone in the EU already being on it), and leave Signal only for private info sharing, as I grew tired of convincing people in my circles to move to Signal for privacy only to receive complaints that X,Y, Z features from WhatsApp are either missing, buggy or super frustrating to use on Signal. Oh, and receiving calls on Signal for Android is a mess (known bugs for years) where some calls just won't come through to my phone even if the desktop client is ringing, only to have it show up as a missed call notification on my phone a few minutes later. Unacceptable.
I do support the Signal team for their work and what they stand for, but my patience (and that of those around me I convinced to switch from WhatsApp) is wearing thin.
This is why I use Telegram as a "good-enough" alternative to the tech monopolies. No, you don't get E2EE without opting in (and Secret Chats don't exist at all for groups) but it's one of those products that makes joy in the hearts of anyone, enthusiast or no, who uses it. Its clients are fully open-source and the man behind it, Pavel Durov, is truy a hero in my book for his consistent stance against big powers, from state actors to tech giants.
I also selfhost a Matrix homeserver and bridge all-the-things to it, possibly its finest feature but there's no way any of its client implementations is going to spark joy in the hearts of the mainstream.
It's important, much like in our politics, to find the fine line between the extremes so that we can leverage and exploit good-enough choices for more freedom for everyone. I use Linux but for most people it's enough to at least get them to consider some FOSS alternatives in their Windows or macOS environments. We can use these small victories to chip away at the mortar of surveillance.
I will never, ever, return to Facebook products. The global damage wrought by that company will go down in the history books, I'm sure. So let's pick those things that are "good enough" as our chisels for a better future for all.
EDIT: Telegram has a chat export feature if you're a WhatsApp user considering the switch [1].
[1] https://telegram.org/blog/move-history
I also selfhost a Matrix homeserver and bridge all-the-things to it, possibly its finest feature but there's no way any of its client implementations is going to spark joy in the hearts of the mainstream.
It's important, much like in our politics, to find the fine line between the extremes so that we can leverage and exploit good-enough choices for more freedom for everyone. I use Linux but for most people it's enough to at least get them to consider some FOSS alternatives in their Windows or macOS environments. We can use these small victories to chip away at the mortar of surveillance.
I will never, ever, return to Facebook products. The global damage wrought by that company will go down in the history books, I'm sure. So let's pick those things that are "good enough" as our chisels for a better future for all.
EDIT: Telegram has a chat export feature if you're a WhatsApp user considering the switch [1].
[1] https://telegram.org/blog/move-history
>Pavel Durov, is truy a hero in my book for his consistent stance against big powers, from state actors to tech giants.
Oh yeah, especially the recent Smart Voting fiasco. A true hero.
Oh yeah, especially the recent Smart Voting fiasco. A true hero.
So others who find this comment someday have the full story, Pavel wrote a defense here [1]. I don't really see how he had a choice with the boot heel of Apple and Google always at his neck.
[1] https://telegra.ph/Why-Telegram-had-to-follow-Apple-and-Goog...
[1] https://telegra.ph/Why-Telegram-had-to-follow-Apple-and-Goog...
I've used the chat export feature of Telegram before deleting my WhatsApp account. It works well and convinced me to use Telegram over Signal in cases where I had contacts on both platforms.
(Personally, I'm also bitter that Signal Android supports backup while Signal iOS doesn't...and transferring from one iOS device to another isn't considered backup).
(Personally, I'm also bitter that Signal Android supports backup while Signal iOS doesn't...and transferring from one iOS device to another isn't considered backup).
Is IOS blocking the feature?
I've been looking at their GitHub trying to find answers, it sounds like it's not a priority for them, being on the feature roadmap since 2015.
https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/2542
https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/2542
telegram is certainly non a tech-giant with 500M users
Can anyone explain to me the main obstacles for Signal to succeed ? I keep thinking about how strange is that we can maintain complex open-source projects like linux but we cannot join forces and create a good open-source messaging app, which is a thing almost everyone with a smartphone uses, I know its not the same thing and you need someone to take care of infrastructure etc, but I still think its strange.
Because getting to 1 billion users is hard. Google tried it.
Basically people have been using their favourite messaging apps for years now and if they're satisfied they aren't going to switch.
Basically people have been using their favourite messaging apps for years now and if they're satisfied they aren't going to switch.
Signal does have this feature. It's just that their mobile clients do not support it (as a "slave" device), from what I understand this is no different than WhatsApp multi device feature
This article is regarding a new beta feature in which you can have multiple "host" devices connected to the same WhatsApp account. It's not the same as the previous "WhatsApp Web"/"Signal desktop" experience.
This article specifically mentions "nonphone devices" which means it is not much (if at all) different from Signal desktop
But you can now use them even if the phone is turned off, unlike previously where the "web" devices just provided a view of data from the phone.
The Signal desktop client has always continued to work even when the phone was off.
Interesting, I wasn't aware that was supported. Thanks for the information
Yeah, the implementation described in the article seems almost exactly how I understand Signal has been doing it all along. It's purely a client software choice not to allow a phone to be a secondary device. There's a fork which adds this feature to the Android app, though I forget what it's called.
> It's not the same as the previous "WhatsApp Web"/"Signal desktop" experience.
The traditional "WhatsApp Web" and "Signal desktop" are completely different experiences though.
Though the details differ, WhatsApp's new approach, outlined in this article, is much closer to what Signal has always been doing since it introduced Signal Desktop - which, once linked, functions independently of your phone.
The traditional "WhatsApp Web" and "Signal desktop" are completely different experiences though.
Though the details differ, WhatsApp's new approach, outlined in this article, is much closer to what Signal has always been doing since it introduced Signal Desktop - which, once linked, functions independently of your phone.
This comment proves that convenience trumps security and explains WhatsApp's success.
I also want to note that you can use them in parallel, no need to switch or convince other people to do so.
I also want to note that you can use them in parallel, no need to switch or convince other people to do so.
> convenience trumps security
Your comment implies that security is being traded off in favour of convenience. Could you explain how?
Your comment implies that security is being traded off in favour of convenience. Could you explain how?
Facebook is not transparent about how data collected through WhatsApp is used (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/business/facebook-whatsap...).
WhatsApp "harvests “data linked to you,” including your device ID, for “developer’s advertising and marketing.” It also collects your contact info, user ID and device ID for ominously vague “other purposes.” (https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2021/03/06/stop-usin...)
It's true Facebook only collect metadata and can't read your actual messages normally, but that's still important. (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/why-metadata-matters)
WhatsApp "harvests “data linked to you,” including your device ID, for “developer’s advertising and marketing.” It also collects your contact info, user ID and device ID for ominously vague “other purposes.” (https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2021/03/06/stop-usin...)
It's true Facebook only collect metadata and can't read your actual messages normally, but that's still important. (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/why-metadata-matters)
Your user ID is your phone number. If Facebook has that there really is no need for nebulous ‘device IDs’.
It depends how you're assessing the need.
As an individual, no, there's no need, you can use your phone number as a user ID (although this comes up as a concern whenever Signal is mentioned as an alternative). There's also a practical factor - using device IDs allows end-to-end encryption to multiple devices without the user needing to manage keys themselves. (ie: WhatsApp can just create a new key pair for each device).
As Facebook however, there is a business need to be able to identify a single user across multiple devices in order to properly track them for marketing reasons.
If Facebook are unable to do this, then the business case for operating a free messaging service falls apart. Each individual needs to make their own decision as to whether they are prepared to pay the price of sharing the data that Facebook collects in exchange for simple, free-of-cost, international messaging. It's not an easy decision.
As an individual, no, there's no need, you can use your phone number as a user ID (although this comes up as a concern whenever Signal is mentioned as an alternative). There's also a practical factor - using device IDs allows end-to-end encryption to multiple devices without the user needing to manage keys themselves. (ie: WhatsApp can just create a new key pair for each device).
As Facebook however, there is a business need to be able to identify a single user across multiple devices in order to properly track them for marketing reasons.
If Facebook are unable to do this, then the business case for operating a free messaging service falls apart. Each individual needs to make their own decision as to whether they are prepared to pay the price of sharing the data that Facebook collects in exchange for simple, free-of-cost, international messaging. It's not an easy decision.
I'm confused by your post. I use signal seamlessly between my desktop, iphone, and ipad using the same account. I can take photos with my phone, post them to a chat, then go back to my desktop to type longer messages more easily.
Is your problem that a phone is required to be the primary device when doing this?
Is your problem that a phone is required to be the primary device when doing this?
Then you clearly haven't read my post thoroughly. I repeatedly mentioned my issues being with Signal not allowing multiple instances on Android devices using the same account, while you're talking about Signal on Apple devices.
His problem is that he has Android.
Its very hard to do this without opening up to a lot of potential fuckups and exploits.
The way e2e works is by exchanging public keys (kinda like a cryptographic username), imagine having multiple devices and verifying + keeping track of the keys from each device.
This is why im not surprised fb was the first to come out with this feature, you need fb level resources to get this out first and from a quick look at the article it seems like they're not using centralization to solve the problem.
"WhatsApp multi-device uses a client-fanout approach, where the WhatsApp client sending the message encrypts and transmits it N number of times to N number of different devices — those in the sender and receiver’s device lists."
The way e2e works is by exchanging public keys (kinda like a cryptographic username), imagine having multiple devices and verifying + keeping track of the keys from each device.
This is why im not surprised fb was the first to come out with this feature, you need fb level resources to get this out first and from a quick look at the article it seems like they're not using centralization to solve the problem.
"WhatsApp multi-device uses a client-fanout approach, where the WhatsApp client sending the message encrypts and transmits it N number of times to N number of different devices — those in the sender and receiver’s device lists."
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Let's remind ourselves of a few facts:
Facebook takes part in the US government's mass surveillance operations, granting wide, possibly complete, access to users' communications. This was revealed by whistle-blower Edward Snowden and the documents he had released. Facebook's interaction with the NSA or other government agencies is kept secret, and will not be admitted, so when Facebook tells you your communications via its applications and services are secure, that is certainly not wholly the case, and quite possibly not at all the case.
Additionally, Facebook uses your communications for its own business interests, e.g. to manipulate you into paying for services or products whose providers pay Facebook, or for other kinds of social engineering. It stands to reason that this includes the information Facebook gathers about you from your WhatsApp conversations.
There are other messaging applications with multi-device capabilities - better or worse - and we should strive to use those with open source code, well-established algorithms, and transparent, robust and trustworthy governance as projects.
----
So - please do not use WhatsApp and try to get your friends and family to switch to alternative applications. Signal and Telegram seem to be the popular alternatives, even if they each have their own shortcomings and flaws.
Facebook takes part in the US government's mass surveillance operations, granting wide, possibly complete, access to users' communications. This was revealed by whistle-blower Edward Snowden and the documents he had released. Facebook's interaction with the NSA or other government agencies is kept secret, and will not be admitted, so when Facebook tells you your communications via its applications and services are secure, that is certainly not wholly the case, and quite possibly not at all the case.
Additionally, Facebook uses your communications for its own business interests, e.g. to manipulate you into paying for services or products whose providers pay Facebook, or for other kinds of social engineering. It stands to reason that this includes the information Facebook gathers about you from your WhatsApp conversations.
There are other messaging applications with multi-device capabilities - better or worse - and we should strive to use those with open source code, well-established algorithms, and transparent, robust and trustworthy governance as projects.
----
So - please do not use WhatsApp and try to get your friends and family to switch to alternative applications. Signal and Telegram seem to be the popular alternatives, even if they each have their own shortcomings and flaws.
> Signal and Telegram seem to be the popular alternatives
taking your own argument into account, using "popular alternatives" is probably not the right criteria here.
Telegram is not E2E by default, so the name shouldn't even appear in any list of recommendations.
taking your own argument into account, using "popular alternatives" is probably not the right criteria here.
Telegram is not E2E by default, so the name shouldn't even appear in any list of recommendations.
Don't you think many/most users dgaf about e2e ?
Yes, but if we are giving recommendations to users, and are explicitly wanting to take into account mass surveillance like this entire thread of conversation is about, e2e is pretty much a requirement nowadays, and we should be suspicious of any service that doesn't implement it.
Agreed. I'm confused as to why Telegram doesn't implement e2e by default. It seems to be the number 1 criticism of people who would otherwise most likely sign up.
Post-Snowden, the question around encryption seems to have shifted from "why are you doing it?" to "why aren't you doing it?".
It just seems like an odd feature not to have unless you have a strong reason for not wanting it.
Is it a technical hurdle?
> It stands to reason that this includes the information Facebook gathers about you from your WhatsApp conversations.
It stands to reason that they miraculously break the end to end encryption of Whatsapp?
It stands to reason that they miraculously break the end to end encryption of Whatsapp?
Exfiltration via side channel exists. For instance, Facebook will upload your conversations when you report abuse/block a contact, and this is behaviour they decided to publicise, who knows what else they collect.
Can't agree more, it was kind of funny reading they were so worried about "user's privacy" while what you state is now common knowledge.
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quite right
and this is HN. and one may well wonder in how far FB does NOT seriously interfer with discussions here [and elsewhere, ofc too, for that matter]
Are you implying that Facebook moderates discussions here? I believe @dang is employed directly by YCombinator and is independent of any other tech company.
As for commenting, I can’t speak for other Facebook employees but I made it a point to never comment on Facebook related discussions while I was still employed there. Frankly I didn’t see the point. Most threads would get so vitriolic and emotional that there wasn’t any space to have a discussion. There would be people spouting conspiracy theories like “Facebook controls discussions on HN”. No real point in engaging in such discussions, I figured.
As for commenting, I can’t speak for other Facebook employees but I made it a point to never comment on Facebook related discussions while I was still employed there. Frankly I didn’t see the point. Most threads would get so vitriolic and emotional that there wasn’t any space to have a discussion. There would be people spouting conspiracy theories like “Facebook controls discussions on HN”. No real point in engaging in such discussions, I figured.
Comments that tend to be critical of Facebook tend to get downvotes, at least early on in the discussion; it's hard not to suspect something may be going on
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Something that is interesting here is on-boarding new devices. Since all the encryption is done by each message being sent to the {all sender devices (M), all receiver devices (N)} you end up with M+N encryptions.
When onboarding a new device, it needs some amount of state in order for conversations to have a useful context. So the new sender device gets a bundle of recent conversations from who-ever onboarding it. I'm not clear on how you could control the amount of context or add more state, but that is off-topic.
What I'm wondering is: Does this have a race condition? Say that you have:
Sender A knows about receivers {B,C,D} Sender A sends message Foo to {B,C,D} Receiver E is onboarded at the same time Foo is sent. Is there no state where E does not receive the message?
I'm sure that this is accounted for and out of scope in a high level blog post, but I am curious how that part works.
When onboarding a new device, it needs some amount of state in order for conversations to have a useful context. So the new sender device gets a bundle of recent conversations from who-ever onboarding it. I'm not clear on how you could control the amount of context or add more state, but that is off-topic.
What I'm wondering is: Does this have a race condition? Say that you have:
Sender A knows about receivers {B,C,D} Sender A sends message Foo to {B,C,D} Receiver E is onboarded at the same time Foo is sent. Is there no state where E does not receive the message?
I'm sure that this is accounted for and out of scope in a high level blog post, but I am curious how that part works.
Hopefully this will make using the WhatsApp bridge on Matrix much easier - one of the reasons I haven't gone all in on Matrix.
If I can have a device setup that is linked, then I don't have to run a VM or (hopefully) have it even installed on my phone.
The ship has sailed. While we endure incessant 'we want you to bend backwards and agree to our new TOS' in WhatsApp, Telegram keeps being friggin' awesome and getting better every fortnight or so.
isn't Telegram unencrypted?
by default. But you can change it to encrypted in settings.
It would be nice if it was the other way around - encrypted by default and unencrypted using settings
It would be nice if it was the other way around - encrypted by default and unencrypted using settings
Group messages cannot be encrypted though which males the whole thing much less exciting
Also, encrypted chats don't synchronize among devices. Also, they can't be backup-up or exported for a manual migration.
My top 4 messaging apps are encrypted by default (whatsapp, signal, wire, matrix). Why would I use telegram?
Perhaps this is an odd question - but can someone comment on why this was posted today? The blog post is from July, so I'm wondering whether it's past the initial experimentation phase or something?
WhatsApp only just recently told me this was a feature. So yea I assume it was only fully rolled out around now.
Still in Beta, I've been using it for ~3 weeks
ctrl+F "XMPP"… No? OKay, I'll be that guy.
Multiple devices, multiple platforms, E2EE, gateways to other networks... my XMPP server handles all of that, and I convinced non-tech users to use it mainly because of the great Android client Conversations.
Yes, there are some rough edges because there isn't a iOS client that matches Conversations in terms of user friendliness. But siskin-im in on its way there.
I also have had complaints from friends but mainly because I am a shitty admin...
Oh, and having your phone number as your username is something that really is important for you? Use Quicksy then.
Multiple devices, multiple platforms, E2EE, gateways to other networks... my XMPP server handles all of that, and I convinced non-tech users to use it mainly because of the great Android client Conversations.
Yes, there are some rough edges because there isn't a iOS client that matches Conversations in terms of user friendliness. But siskin-im in on its way there.
I also have had complaints from friends but mainly because I am a shitty admin...
Oh, and having your phone number as your username is something that really is important for you? Use Quicksy then.
While I'm with you on xmpp, calling Conversations "great" is dishonest. While the foundation is good and the xep support is great, the developer refuses to adapt the client to any conventional design standard, requiring the users to use either blabber or monocles to achieve some familarity. Besides that, message search is not able to link the message into context, while showing both timestamp and associated chat, requiring the user to go into the chat himself and scroll up until the message in question shows up.
I never use the search feature, so I believe you if you think it's bad.
What are blabber's or monocles' selling points compared to Conversations? I couldn't find with a quick search, but I'm open to suggesting them instead of Conversations if their UI is better.
What are blabber's or monocles' selling points compared to Conversations? I couldn't find with a quick search, but I'm open to suggesting them instead of Conversations if their UI is better.
I do not claim to be an export on this topic, but afaik blabbers initial selling point was to sort the settings in a way more accessible menu and overall adapt the app to the other messengers that dominate the market: Rounded, more bubbly text displays, more sensible menu integrations, the ubiquos little checkmarks to display delivery/read status etc. monocles started as a project to reverse/refine some features like the auto-link preview the blabber guy added which isn't necessarily wanted when in unknown group chats, because previewed links might be illegal in the users jurisdiction.
Overall both are very frontend centric modifications, focusing on user comfort.
Overall both are very frontend centric modifications, focusing on user comfort.
> and I convinced non-tech users to use it mainly because of the great Android client Conversations.
And that's the only client in existence that supports the XEPs required for XMPP to be a viable alternative in the modern world.
What about iOS? What about desktop?
> I also have had complaints from friends but mainly because I am a shitty admin
What if I don't want to run my own XMPP server? How do I find the one that supports message carbons, file uploads, encryption, push notification, client state indications...
And that's the only client in existence that supports the XEPs required for XMPP to be a viable alternative in the modern world.
What about iOS? What about desktop?
> I also have had complaints from friends but mainly because I am a shitty admin
What if I don't want to run my own XMPP server? How do I find the one that supports message carbons, file uploads, encryption, push notification, client state indications...
> And that's the only client in existence that supports the XEPs required for XMPP to be a viable alternative in the modern world.
That's not true, but admittedly that information is not trivial to find right now for end users. It's a known problem, and people are working on a nice comparison of XMPP client capabilities so people can make a more informed choice.
> What if I don't want to run my own XMPP server? How do I find the one that supports message carbons, file uploads, encryption, push notification, client state indications...
https://compliance.conversations.im/ or for something less overwhelming, https://joinjabber.org/
That's not true, but admittedly that information is not trivial to find right now for end users. It's a known problem, and people are working on a nice comparison of XMPP client capabilities so people can make a more informed choice.
> What if I don't want to run my own XMPP server? How do I find the one that supports message carbons, file uploads, encryption, push notification, client state indications...
https://compliance.conversations.im/ or for something less overwhelming, https://joinjabber.org/
> That's not true, but admittedly that information is not trivial to find right now for end users.
So, it's true for end users.
> It's a known problem, and people are working on a nice comparison of XMPP client capabilities so people can make a more informed choice.
There can't be more than a handful of usable XMPP clients in existence. The fact that "people are working" and "information is not trivial to find" speaks volumes about the state of XMPP clients.
> or for something less overwhelming
This is the reason XMPP is more-or-less dead for most users: "information is not trivial to find", "overwhelming" and so on.
Meanwhile already in 2016 Daniel Gultsch wrote what's expected of a mobile client for XMPP, and this can be easily extended to all other clients. [1]
Instead, 5 years later there's Conversations, "information is not trivial to find" and "check your server for compliance".
[1] https://gultsch.de/xmpp_2016.html
So, it's true for end users.
> It's a known problem, and people are working on a nice comparison of XMPP client capabilities so people can make a more informed choice.
There can't be more than a handful of usable XMPP clients in existence. The fact that "people are working" and "information is not trivial to find" speaks volumes about the state of XMPP clients.
> or for something less overwhelming
This is the reason XMPP is more-or-less dead for most users: "information is not trivial to find", "overwhelming" and so on.
Meanwhile already in 2016 Daniel Gultsch wrote what's expected of a mobile client for XMPP, and this can be easily extended to all other clients. [1]
Instead, 5 years later there's Conversations, "information is not trivial to find" and "check your server for compliance".
[1] https://gultsch.de/xmpp_2016.html
> Instead, 5 years later there's Conversations, "information is not trivial to find" and "check your server for compliance".
If you think nothing happened in 5 years then you're very much mistaken. As I said, the information should be more easily discoverable, and I linked you to some of the projects working on that aspect.
You seem to confuse "not easily discoverable" with "doesn't exist", which are different things when it comes to the kind and amount of effort required to fix them.
My own work is on Snikket, which is a project working on XMPP clients for all platforms with a modern feature baseline. My belief is that simply telling people to "use XMPP", and requiring them to find appropriate clients and servers is solving the problem from the wrong end. XMPP-based solutions should be attractive to people in their own right. Whether we like it or not, the average person does not (and will never) choose to use software because it "uses open standards".
If you think nothing happened in 5 years then you're very much mistaken. As I said, the information should be more easily discoverable, and I linked you to some of the projects working on that aspect.
You seem to confuse "not easily discoverable" with "doesn't exist", which are different things when it comes to the kind and amount of effort required to fix them.
My own work is on Snikket, which is a project working on XMPP clients for all platforms with a modern feature baseline. My belief is that simply telling people to "use XMPP", and requiring them to find appropriate clients and servers is solving the problem from the wrong end. XMPP-based solutions should be attractive to people in their own right. Whether we like it or not, the average person does not (and will never) choose to use software because it "uses open standards".
> You seem to confuse "not easily discoverable" with "doesn't exist"
From the point of users this: "information is not trivial to find right now for end users" is equal to "doesn't exist".
This is true for both clients and servers. When I asked "what if I don't want to run my own server", the very first link you provided me with was "Check the compliance of your server". Wat? I immediately closed the page, and I will never come back to it.
These things simply do not exist for anyone except hardcore geeks who are willing to figure all this out. 20 years ago when I was young I would do that. Now I will just open Telegram.
> My belief is that simply telling people to "use XMPP", and requiring them to find appropriate clients and servers is solving the problem from the wrong end. XMPP-based solutions should be attractive to people in their own right.
Yes! That's so very true.
From the point of users this: "information is not trivial to find right now for end users" is equal to "doesn't exist".
This is true for both clients and servers. When I asked "what if I don't want to run my own server", the very first link you provided me with was "Check the compliance of your server". Wat? I immediately closed the page, and I will never come back to it.
These things simply do not exist for anyone except hardcore geeks who are willing to figure all this out. 20 years ago when I was young I would do that. Now I will just open Telegram.
> My belief is that simply telling people to "use XMPP", and requiring them to find appropriate clients and servers is solving the problem from the wrong end. XMPP-based solutions should be attractive to people in their own right.
Yes! That's so very true.
>What about iOS?
Siskin [1] seems to be the best client for iOS right now. It's not as good as Conversations.
>What about desktop?
I am pretty happy with beagle (OSX) [2], Dino (Linux) [3] and Gajim (linux, windows, OSX) [4]. If in-browser is your thing, converse.js [5] or movim [6] come to mind.
>What if I don't want to run my own XMPP server?
Use quicksy.im?
[1] https://siskin.im
[2] https://beagle.im
[3] https://dino.im
[4] https://gajim.org
[5] https://conversejs.org/
[6] https://movim.eu/
Siskin [1] seems to be the best client for iOS right now. It's not as good as Conversations.
>What about desktop?
I am pretty happy with beagle (OSX) [2], Dino (Linux) [3] and Gajim (linux, windows, OSX) [4]. If in-browser is your thing, converse.js [5] or movim [6] come to mind.
>What if I don't want to run my own XMPP server?
Use quicksy.im?
[1] https://siskin.im
[2] https://beagle.im
[3] https://dino.im
[4] https://gajim.org
[5] https://conversejs.org/
[6] https://movim.eu/
Multiple devices... without sync
Multiple platforms... but iOS a night mare with E2EE
Gateways to other networks... Honestly I couldn't find working ones
Why would you want to make a phone number your user ame - this way you are sharing it with almost everyone...
Multiple platforms... but iOS a night mare with E2EE
Gateways to other networks... Honestly I couldn't find working ones
Why would you want to make a phone number your user ame - this way you are sharing it with almost everyone...
>without sync
My message history in sync'ed between Conversations (Android), Dino (Linux), Gajim (also Linux) and beagle-im (Mac OS X). Not sure what you are referring to.
>Gateways to other networks... Honestly I couldn't find working ones
Anything supported by pidgin can be used as a gateway through spectrum2. I use telegram and mattermost this way. I admit that spectrum2 is a bit confusing to set up, but it works!
>Why would you want to make a phone number your user ame - this way you are sharing it with almost everyone...
I am with you on this! But to many non tech user, this seems to be important. Some get the feeling that they don't "create an account" when they use whatsapp or similar.
My message history in sync'ed between Conversations (Android), Dino (Linux), Gajim (also Linux) and beagle-im (Mac OS X). Not sure what you are referring to.
>Gateways to other networks... Honestly I couldn't find working ones
Anything supported by pidgin can be used as a gateway through spectrum2. I use telegram and mattermost this way. I admit that spectrum2 is a bit confusing to set up, but it works!
>Why would you want to make a phone number your user ame - this way you are sharing it with almost everyone...
I am with you on this! But to many non tech user, this seems to be important. Some get the feeling that they don't "create an account" when they use whatsapp or similar.
Can anyone with good knowledge of the protocol explain the differences between what WhatsApp is rolling out now and what Signal has been doing for a long time now?
Why does it matter if WhatsApp is closed and non-auditable?
Upd. See also:
WhatsApp whitepaper removed sentence about never having access to private keys (twitter.com/shiftreduce)
491 points by Aissen 8 months ago | 106 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25685446
Upd. See also:
WhatsApp whitepaper removed sentence about never having access to private keys (twitter.com/shiftreduce)
491 points by Aissen 8 months ago | 106 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25685446
Indeed. Signal client at least on Android uses reproducible builds.
Does anyone with knowledge on the subject know how different it is from what Matrix/Element does? or any other implementation?
End-to-end encryption on multi-device? I think Matrix and Element solved this before.
verifying between all parties involved is incredibly clunky though
Getting the full benefits of E2EE (that is, protection against active attacks and not only passive eavesdropping) requires verification out-of-band in any case. Verifying is entirely optional on both Matrix and WhatsApp (not verifying doesn't affect the functionality of the chat), but gives you the same benefit on both platforms.
But then again, WhatsApp actively hides the feature away behind menus and pretends it's not really a thing, while Element is a bit more pushy about telling you about it.
But then again, WhatsApp actively hides the feature away behind menus and pretends it's not really a thing, while Element is a bit more pushy about telling you about it.
> With this new capability, you can now use WhatsApp on your phone and up to four other nonphone devices simultaneously — even if your phone battery is dead.
Does "non-phone" here at least include "iPad"? The use case of "if your phone battery is dead" is just such a non-issue for me, as I have a million other critical reasons to keep my phone charged and online... but having the WhatsApp external client--the one you install on laptops--available for iPads and even other phones would actually open up new use cases for me.
Does "non-phone" here at least include "iPad"? The use case of "if your phone battery is dead" is just such a non-issue for me, as I have a million other critical reasons to keep my phone charged and online... but having the WhatsApp external client--the one you install on laptops--available for iPads and even other phones would actually open up new use cases for me.
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With more and more services going e2e encrypted, the application servers no longer have any special role or logic. All data they store is no longer privacy or security critical, and they no longer need ACL's.
I'd therefore like to see future chat services like this to just have one big S3 backend (or similar).
I'd therefore like to see future chat services like this to just have one big S3 backend (or similar).
Now if they'd just stop the spam and get rid of the phone numbers! There is ZERO good reason to require a phone number in 2021 nor to access my contact list of which the majority fo the people I talk do I don't have their number.
It has been a while.
Also now, when a conversation is archived it remains archived even if someone in that group posts something. Before when someone in an archived conversation posted something the conversation would be unarchived.
Also now, when a conversation is archived it remains archived even if someone in that group posts something. Before when someone in an archived conversation posted something the conversation would be unarchived.
Crazy that an application is proud, in 2021, to be usable on multiple devices.
A feature like that tends to become quite a bit more complicated with e2e encryption and and the kind of (potential) adversaries WhatsApp attracts due to its size.
This would be much easier for an application where all state is stored in clear-text on servers.
And even harder for services which are trying to avoid storing metadata on servers as much as possible, such as Signal.
This would be much easier for an application where all state is stored in clear-text on servers.
And even harder for services which are trying to avoid storing metadata on servers as much as possible, such as Signal.
If they're requiring a QR code scan to add new devices (reasonable IMO), couldn't they just use that to sync the encryption keys?
There's so much more state than just the encryption keys - e.g. Without a central source of state, you need to sync mutations to the state - actions like sends and deletes need to be communicated across devices. Suddenly you're in the field of distributed systems, which is a complex field.
That's an interesting and long awaited update. But there's no mention of a new desktop app, or new web app. I wonder how users in the beta will be able to test this.
I could run chat programs on multiple computers in the 90s, so today we're in a worse state than then. What gives?
With no encryption so the network, the servers and basically anyone who cares to look can see your private messages. If you don’t care about that, indeed it’s easy to implement things.
Did those chat programs encrypt messages end-to-end while syncing message history across devices?
[deleted]
But only one phone, yeah...
Smells of NSA.
Don't worry, we will store those keys nice and safe.... In case we get subpoenaed. Just scan you retina.
[deleted]
WhatsApp uses the Signal encryption subsystem and they only allow one other machine.
What is FB doing that allows this on Whatsapp but not Signal.
What a WhatsApp users opening themselves up for here?
What is FB doing that allows this on Whatsapp but not Signal.
What a WhatsApp users opening themselves up for here?
The Signal app never did the "primary device serves message contents to companion devices" like WhatsApp did.
Ever since Signal introduced the desktop client, its multidevice functionality has involved fully fledged signal-protocol sessions between each device.
It sounds like WhatsApp is now adding something like this to their client, though it sounds like some of the details of the scheme differ.
In principal the signal protocol works fine for a multidevice scenario.
Ever since Signal introduced the desktop client, its multidevice functionality has involved fully fledged signal-protocol sessions between each device.
It sounds like WhatsApp is now adding something like this to their client, though it sounds like some of the details of the scheme differ.
In principal the signal protocol works fine for a multidevice scenario.
> The WhatsApp server maintains a mapping between each person’s account and all their device identities. When someone wants to send a message, they get their device list keys from the server.
Oh, no...
Oh, no...
What's your concern?
> they get their device list keys from the server
Which means the server can just substitute keys in.
Which means the server can just substitute keys in.
Right, but that doesn't compromise the security of the service necessarily.
Users can catch a malicious server injecting incorrect keys by looking at security notifications and comparing security codes. This is part of the Signal protocol.
This may be tedious but only needs to be done in the event of phone keys getting reset (a once in a year event?), as all companion device keys are automatically verified with signatures provided from an account owner's primary (phone) device
Source: https://www.whatsapp.com/security/WhatsApp_Security_Whitepap...
Users can catch a malicious server injecting incorrect keys by looking at security notifications and comparing security codes. This is part of the Signal protocol.
This may be tedious but only needs to be done in the event of phone keys getting reset (a once in a year event?), as all companion device keys are automatically verified with signatures provided from an account owner's primary (phone) device
Source: https://www.whatsapp.com/security/WhatsApp_Security_Whitepap...
1. It's impossible to export your chat history, except for one conversation at a time. The only exception to this is if you root an android phone which gives you access to the raw database.
2. It's impossible to move chat history from an android device to an iOS device. And moving from ios to android is only possible with certain samsung phones.
3. It's impossible to access WhatsApp from more than one phone at once. This is mostly still true with this update. You cannot use the mobile app as a "companion device".
Do people not consider their chat histories valuable? I have my SMS history going back to 2011 (when I first got an android phone). Email can be archived. Facebook messenger keeps messages in perpetuity. WhatsApp is a frustrating outlier here.