this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
147 points (80.5% liked)

Android

16952 readers
208 users here now

The new home of /r/Android on Lemmy and the Fediverse!

Android news, reviews, tips, and discussions about rooting, tutorials, and apps.

🔗Universal Link: [email protected]


💡Content Philosophy:

Content which benefits the community (news, rumours, and discussions) is generally allowed and is valued over content which benefits only the individual (technical questions, help buying/selling, rants, self-promotion, etc.) which will be removed if it's in violation of the rules.


Support, technical, or app related questions belong in: [email protected]

For fresh communities, lemmy apps, and instance updates: [email protected]

💬Matrix Chat

💬Telegram channels / chats

📰Our communities below


Rules

  1. Stay on topic: All posts should be related to the Android OS or ecosystem.

  2. No support questions, recommendation requests, rants, or bug reports: Posts must benefit the community rather than the individual. Please post to [email protected].

  3. Describe images/videos, no memes: Please include a text description when sharing images or videos. Post memes to [email protected].

  4. No self-promotion spam: Active community members can post their apps if they answer any questions in the comments. Please do not post links to your own website, YouTube, blog content, or communities.

  5. No reposts or rehosted content: Share only the original source of an article, unless it's not available in English or requires logging in (like Twitter). Avoid reposting the same topic from other sources.

  6. No editorializing titles: You can add the author or website's name if helpful, but keep article titles unchanged.

  7. No piracy or unverified APKs: Do not share links or direct people to pirated content or unverified APKs, which may contain malicious code.

  8. No unauthorized polls, bots, or giveaways: Do not create polls, use bots, or organize giveaways without first contacting mods for approval.

  9. No offensive or low-effort content: Don't post offensive or unhelpful content. Keep it civil and friendly!

  10. No affiliate links: Posting affiliate links is not allowed.

Quick Links

Our Communities

Lemmy App List

Chat and More


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

SUMMARY

  • The EU has identified WhatsApp as a gatekeeper in the messaging industry and has given it a few months to enable interoperability with other apps.
  • The EU's Digital Markets Act aims to promote fair competition and give consumers more options for alternative services.
  • WhatsApp has already begun working on interoperability with other apps, potentially allowing smaller players like Signal to compete more fairly.
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I can't wait for signal/session/simplex to be whatsapp compatible, but I'm not sure they can provided the e2ee gurantees since whatsapp is closed source.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

WhatsApp uses uses the Whisper encryption algorithm, developed by Signal.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

At least that's what they said it uses.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I fear that Signal won't implement cross compatibility for WhatsApp since they already said that they are not a fan of potentially giving up E2EE to get it to work. And I can understand that but I still really would like to have the cross compatibility.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago

I hope Signal doesn't if it won't be E2EE. I like knowing that if it's in Signal, it's E2EE, and being able to tell less technically sophisticated people to whom I recommend Signal that everything in it is secure against eavesdropping.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Beeper will do it, if you self host, it shouldn't be terrible

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Signal and also lots of other privacy focused messenger-services (threema e.g.) already said the will not implement this forced interoperability since it will lower their already high standards regarding their users privacy. Sad but i guess it makes sense :(

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

So users of those apps will have to install the even less secure apps to converse with "normies". Great move.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I’m not sure they can provided the e2ee gurantees since whatsapp is closed source.

Uh, news flash: Signal and Meta are business partners and WhatsApp (just as Facebook Messenger) uses Signal's encryption:

The ability to sell proprietary versions of Signal libraries is literally the reason for Signal's Contributor License Agreement: https://signal.org/cla/

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

it's still closed source, so we can't make guarantees about WhatsApp conversation participants.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

so we can’t make guarantees about WhatsApp conversation participants.

"We" can't but Signal, who work on WhatApp's source code, can: https://signal.org/blog/there-is-no-whatsapp-backdoor/

tldr: When contacts have verified each other, communication is secure.

If you think that Signal can't be trusted, you should not use their client either.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

signal may have given a fully vetted and correct implementation to whatsapp, but because its closed source we don't know if it has changed, or if its really implemented on all conversations.

It changes the trust model of conversation participants.

To answer your query, if signal was closed source, I wouldn't trust it either.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

signal may have given a fully vetted and correct implementation to whatsapp

They were not "given" it. They are literally the contractor who worked on that: "Over the past year, we’ve been progressively rolling out Signal Protocol support for all WhatsApp communication across all WhatsApp clients." –https://signal.org/blog/whatsapp-complete/

but because its closed source we don’t know if it has changed, or if its really implemented on all conversations.

I'm not an encryption developer. I can't vet this for Signal's own app either.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

...and because its closed source, community cryptography developers and researchers can't vet it for you either. That is the core issue, its not about trust.

It's about capabilities that inform the threat model, and the exposure model.