BRO SMS AIN'T BETTER THAN WHATSAPP IT HAS NO ENCRYPTION, PURE FANBOYISM

They just don't want another chat app on their phone, they just use wa for almost everything

That's why the contacts app exists....

or just fucking give them my contacts since pretty much everyone in my country has done it anyways, so they don't gain shit

Ok give them your contacts then, but the fact you thought people in a privacy community would say it's a good idea to give meta access to your contacts is mind boggling.

It's not "fanboyism", I already wrote that SMS is horrible. And what makes you so sure that WhatsApp really is really properly encrypted and not doing some shenanigans? Proprietary apps can claim all kinds of things. So call me naive, but I'll take minimal non-sensitive unencrypted SMS through a somewhat trustworthy service provider over basically spyware on my phone any day, although that may of course be because I live somewhere with relatively decent data protection laws (not that one should put too much trust in those either, but eh, still better than trusting fucking Meta imho).

People install all kinds of crap on their phones, but a single more private messenger is suddenly too much to ask for? Some people really are beyond saving... Though I can kinda relate, my brother is just as stubborn. Any way, I'd still advise to just quit WA and tell them you'll only communicate through Signal (or SimpleX, Session, etc.) in the future, which should help as an incentive. If you're willing to do that is of course up to yo

Open source doesn't mean it's secure and closed source doesn't mean it's not secure. Also, if it wasn't e2e encrypted, we would find out pretty much instantly since there are a lot of people who reverse engineering apps like WhatsApp, since zero-day exploits cost a lot of money, you know. So, personally, I would be pretty sure that WhatsApp is absolutely end-to-end encrypted.

Also, how is it a good idea to give a signal my contacts if it's not okay to give meta my contacts?

Also, if you don't accept this argument, then how do you know there's not a component in your phone that listens to everything you say that's above system level?...

I was just asking how bad it is....

Of course closed source software can be secure, but given that you can't verify that it actually is, it's better to treat it as if it's not. And I'm not saying that WhatsApp isn't encrypted, but we can't know if this also applies properly to metadata, or which encryption algorithm is actually used, if the keys are really only accessible to end users (i.e. if it's really E2EE), etc.

It's not unreasonable to think that Meta (or any other Big Tech company) makes their products just secure enough to not allow just about anyone with the right abilities to exploit weaknesses (which would obviously hurt their business), while still retaining the ability for themselves to have access to at least some of the data.

Also, how is it a good idea to give a signal my contacts if it's not okay to give meta my contacts?

Also, if you don't accept this argument, then how do you know there's not a component in your phone that listens to everything you say that's above system level?...

You seem to be treating privacy like an all-or-nothing situation. There's different levels to privacy, with different realistic possibilities and threat models. To give you the short answers to both questions: It's not a good idea to give Signal access to your contacts, and I indeed don't know if there's a component in my phone spying on everything. But there is nuance to both.

First off, Signal's Contact Dicovery Service is open source. Of course there's still a level of trust required regarding Signal's operational integrity, as we can't know if this is really what runs on their servers, but at least the Signal Foundation doesn't have a history of countless known privacy violations like Meta does, which means it all comes down to how much you trust either of those organisations. So even though I wouldn't recommend granting Signal access to your contacts and personally prefer messengers without such a feature (e.g. SimpleX), I also don't yet insist on recommending against it.

As for the hardware: Assuming that there is indeed some component spying on me, why would this be a justification to become careless about privacy on the software level? And the real difference between the arguments is the availability of alternatives. While there are quite a few open-source messenger alternatives, the same can't be said about hardware. And it's unlikely for there to be anything on the hardware level that could be spying without anyone noticing, at least if we assume that this hardware would send this data somewhere, which one would surely notice when analysing network traffic or by checking for emitted radio frequencies if the manufacturer had the genius idea of using mesh networks instead.
However, certain components could certainly be used as a backdoor for state actors if they gain physical access to a device, so I'm still advocating for open hardware and firmware.

yes you can verity that it is secure by reverse engineering, just like someone can read the code, someone can reverse engineer it.

And I'm not saying that WhatsApp isn't encrypted, but we can't know if this also applies properly to metadata, or which encryption algorithm is actually used, if the keys are really only accessible to end users (i.e. if it's really E2EE), etc.

It DOESN'T, they literally state that they don't have encrypt metadata and can share it with other meta services

which honestly as long as the messages themselves are encrypted is sadly still a much better option than sms

Of course there's still a level of trust required regarding Signal's operational integrity, as we can't know if this is really what runs on their servers, but at least the Signal Foundation doesn't have a history of countless known privacy violations like Meta does, which means it all comes down to how much you trust either of those organisations

thanks for proving you don't know, even the signal server doesn't know ur contacts...

https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/

https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007061452-Does-Signal-send-my-number-to-my-contacts

As for the hardware: Assuming that there is indeed some component spying on me, why would this be a justification to become careless about privacy on the software level?

because it'd be above everything else and could see everything, no matter the sw ur using... so it'd be pointless anyways

And it's unlikely for there to be anything on the hardware level that could be spying without anyone noticing, at least if we assume that this hardware would send this data somewhere, which one would surely notice when analysing network traffic or by checking for emitted radio frequencies if the manufacturer had the genius idea of using mesh networks instead.

Just like with whatsapp...

yes you can verity that it is secure by reverse engineering, just like someone can read the code, someone can reverse engineer it.

No, you can't, at least not reliably. Reverse engineering is nowhere near as simple as "just like someone can read the code".

It DOESN'T, they literally state that they don't have encrypt metadata and can share it with other meta services

I don't keep up with whatever WhatsApp is doing, so nice to know that it's already worse than I thought, but it doesn't really change my point.

which honestly as long as the messages themselves are encrypted is sadly still a much better option than sms

If I could be certain that the messages are in fact encrypted as claimed, I'd agree.

thanks for proving you don't know, even the signal server doesn't know ur contacts...

They do, just not in the way you probably think. Unique identifiers (which phone numbers typically are) can always be used to track users, even if they're just stored as a hash value on a server. They don't immediately reveal the identity of a person like clear text phone numbers could do, but there's still information that can be extracted through metadata analysis. Though to be fair, this discussion is more relevant to anonymity than to privacy.

because it'd be above everything else and could see everything, no matter the sw ur using... so it'd be pointless anyways

Why would it be pointless? If some random person broke into your home, would you just open all the doors because apparently doors are pointless? Having one entity spy on you is a weird excuse to let another one do the same. I mean... you do you, but I think it's a weird mentality to have.

Just like with whatsapp...

Not really, as any unwanted traffic to WhatsApp's servers would just get drowned within wanted traffic, making it effectively unnoticeable to the user. The same can't be said for hardware that tries to connect somewhere despite no software on that device being allowed to connect to the internet.

No, you can't, at least not reliably. Reverse engineering is nowhere near as simple as "just like someone can read the code".

sure, but someone would find out if WhatsApp didn't e2ee their messages, which is the most important thing

If I could be certain that the messages are in fact encrypted as claimed, I'd agree.

Well you literally can be, because if it was not someone would find out instantly, it'd be a huge thing and meta would suffer greatly if they lied about e2ee

They do, just not in the way you probably think. Unique identifiers (which phone numbers typically are) can always be used to track users, even if they're just stored as a hash value on a server. They don't immediately reveal the identity of a person like clear text phone numbers could do, but there's still information that can be extracted through metadata analysis. Though to be fair, this discussion is more relevant to anonymity than to privacy.

Sealed sender...., also signal is private, not anonymous, if you want both, simplex is ur friend

Why would it be pointless? If some random person broke into your home, would you just open all the doors because apparently doors are pointless?

well that's not the same situation the robber wouldn't see everything, the hw component would.... also other doors have the function of keeping heat inside, not keeping robbers away

Not really, as any unwanted traffic to WhatsApp's servers would just get drowned within wanted traffic, making it effectively unnoticeable to the user. The same can't be said for hardware that tries to connect somewhere despite no software on that device being allowed to connect to the internet.

Well again if it did something like that, we would know thanks ro reverse engineering

sure, but someone would find out if WhatsApp didn't e2ee their messages, which is the most important thing

Not necessarily. Code can be obfuscated.

Well you literally can be, because if it was not someone would find out instantly, it'd be a huge thing and meta would suffer greatly if they lied about e2ee

"Instantly", yeah, sure... WhatsApp isn't really used for secure communication (I wonder why), but by normies who don't know any better. I doubt most users would care if something like this came to light.

Sealed sender...., also signal is private, not anonymous, if you want both, simplex is ur friend

Sealed sender has nothing to do with this, as it applies to messages. You can still build a profile of users based on which users submit which hashes for contact discovery, without the need for them to send any message to those contacts at all.

well that's not the same situation the robber wouldn't see everything, the hw component would.... also other doors have the function of keeping heat inside, not keeping robbers aw

Not necessarily true, and also not really relevant to the analogy. If a hardware component would spy on basically everything, I'd find it weird to just say "Hey Intel, you already have all my data any way, so I'm just going to freely give it to Meta as well."

Well again if it did something like that, we would know thanks ro reverse engineering

You're putting too much blind trust in reverse engineering. And since you seem to be insistent on naively trusting Meta and proprietary applications, I won't try to convince you otherwise. Have fun, I guess.

Not necessarily. Code can be obfuscated

Sure, but someone would still find out. We can be 100% sure of that, so it's still better than SMS period.

Instantly", yeah, sure... WhatsApp isn't really used for secure communication (I wonder why), but by normies who don't know any better. I doubt most users would care if something like this came to light

You have no idea how many businesses use WhatsApp and have their trade secrets on there even. And it is used for secure communication in the real world, in a lot of cases.

Sealed sender has nothing to do with this, as it applies to messages. You can still build a profile of users based on which users submit which hashes for contact discovery, without the need for them to send any message to those contacts at all.

That assumes the server can see which hashes belong to which account. Signal’s contact discovery is designed to match contacts inside a protected enclave, so the server doesn’t get a readable list of them. It may see that a lookup happened, but that alone doesn’t show it can build a contact profile

Not necessarily true, and also not really relevant to the analogy. If a hardware component would spy on basically everything, I'd find it weird to just say "Hey Intel, you already have all my data any way, so I'm just going to freely give it to Meta as well."

Well, have you ever heard of Prism? But I do agree that the less companies you give your data, the better. But still... I don't really think in this scenario it would make any difference.

You're putting too much blind trust in reverse engineering. And since you seem to be insistent on naively trusting Meta and proprietary applications, I won't try to convince you otherwise. Have fun, I guess.

No, I'm not. You're putting way too much trust into open source software, since I'm sure you don't read all the lines of code that there are. You're basically doing the same thing as me.