Technology

So? Those of us who have switched to signal clearly don't want our data going through meta. Just stop using WhatsApp.

I've even got old people using it.

Eff em.

I got my entire Snapchat gc (15 people) and a little more to switch. The key isn't dropping an announcement of "hey I'm moving", you talk to each person individually; starting with the most likely to switch. Then go up the line, share who you've already got to join if you're met with resistance. if you save the most difficult people for last, telling them almost everyone else is already there is usually enough.

If someone along the way has refused to move for the time being, you can revisit them later after you've got more people to move. I didn't 100% nail my judgement of who would and who wouldn't, but I was able to go back and revisit those who didn't.

If you can, reach out to people in person; I got a few this way. You have to express that you will not be accessible otherwise and will only be present on signal moving forward. It helps if you have a reputation for following through :3

Likely not everyone is going to move over. I've accepted that there's some people I probably won't end up talking to ever again. I've got my main group over, the ones that actually respect that I want more security (and less clown-show shit that Snapchat has)

Human nature wants to stay put, you have to have some strategy or it won't work.

Also a lot of people are pissed at Meta for lobbying for TikTok's ban. Use that with the relevant people, if applicable

And you should call them whiny, scared little babies for doing so. But I digress.

Other people have succeeded in getting friend/family groups to switch to better E2EE options, so I believe that most people who say it can't be done haven't actually tried.

Ok, that's your guess.

90% of my contacts did leave Signal because of the SMS removal. And that's SMS, which nobody uses.

People being able to use Signal without being cut off from the world would be massive in terms of getting people to use signal. Which like I said, would mean more Signal-to-Signal chats, which would bring more and more people to signal once they see that it's an actual worthwhile platform.

would it, though

Yes? 100% it would?

A fair amount of people don't want to use WhatsApp, but they have no real choice because it's practically a requirement for living in modern society.

If you make it so they can still chat to people on WhatsApp, they can go to Signal without worrying about that.

why would anyone move away from Whatsapp if they could talk to Signal users without switching apps?

Why would anybody play games on Linux via proton if they could just stay on Windows? Because they don't like Windows.

Like I said above, plenty of people don't like Meta, they use WhatsApp because there's no real choice. Offer them a choice, and more will take the plunge.

And why would anybody move to Signal if they can't talk to anybody?

The massive drop in users after getting rid of SMS support shows that people are willing to use Signal if they can still talk to people, but aren't willing to use it when they can't.

How could it not lead to more Signal-to-Signal chats?

The biggest problem with signal is that nobody uses Signal. Everybody uses WhatsApp.

If you make it so people can switch to signal without it completely cutting you off from the world, then more people will use it, which will lead to more Signal-to-Signal chats, which will lead to signal becoming widespread enough that people shift from WhatsApp.

https://www.trustedreviews.com/versus/whatsapp-vs-signal-4309419

Neither WhatsApp nor Signal are realistically vulnerable to EE2E being comprimised by a man in the middle style attack, they use the same standard.

But if your threat model only includes being worried about random or organized hackers, then you must not be worried about your own government, or governments it cooperates with.

In a nutshell, when you send a message or photo, metadata is also sent out. Metadata includes information about when the message was delivered, who it was sent to and more. Metadata is not protected by end-to-end encryption, meaning that while the content of your message is safe, a lot of information can still be gleaned from it.

Signal has developed a technology for protecting metadata called Sealed Sender. This allows for metadata to be hidden, giving you an added level of security and privacy. WhatsApp does know the IP address and technical information showing that the request comes from the WhatsApp app.

Law enforcement can fairly easily figure out your real identity if they have your metadata from enough messages.

Almost all modern, advanced surveillance is built around the analysis of metadata to establish patterns and narrow down the pool of suspects or persons of interest down to actual specific individuals.

WhatsApp stores your metadata.

Signal does not.

What exact kinds of metadata are we talking about?

https://archive.is/fiAYP

Well we got the bare minimum basics, which are often enough on their own to narrow down to a person:

IP Address.

Send / Recieve Time of Message.

Rough Estimate of Message Length.

Either Rough or Fine GeoLocation Coordinates.

Then we've got everything else that's connected to the 'Meta'verse:

Phone Number

Profile Name (Usually your Real Name)

Email

Anything you've posted on or linked to a Meta Account (Facebook, Instagram)

Or, potentially anything else!

WhatsApp’s privacy policy describes how personal data shared with Facebook “may include other information identified in the Privacy Policy….or obtained upon notice to you or based on your consent”.

Also, WhatsApp sometimes actually stores your actual messages:

WhatsApp does not store messages, but if a message cannot be delivered immediately, it is kept in an encrypted form on the servers for up to 30 days before it is delivered. If it is not delivered, it is then deleted. It does keep track of how often you use the WhatsApp app and your usage habits whilst in the app.

Signal also does not store its messages, and it will not try and link this phone number to an identity, meaning that it won’t have access to your location, email, or other private information.

Because WhatsApp, in some cases, stores your actual messages, that means they can be legally compelled to decrypt them and reveal them to law enforcement.

Signal does not store your actual messages, and thus cannot be legally compelled to provide something they do not possess.

Finally, Signal is a non profit, WhatsApp is a subsidiary of Meta:

WhatsApp is currently owned by Meta, formerly known as Facebook. Due to this integration and WhatsApp’s privacy policy, your information will be shared in order to help Meta better customise its user’s experiences.

Signal is instead owned by the Signal Technology Foundation, which is a registered non-profit that is run on donations from its users. Due to this, Signal does not need to share its user’s information with third-party apps and it’s unlikely that this will change in the future

MegaCorps have every incentive to make as much money as possible, which means selling and making available as much of your data as possible.

A non profit does not have this built in, contradictory incentive.

...

Even without the actual contents of data being revealed, lets throw in some examples of being an American and using WhatsApp where you are potentially fucked:

You live in a state that criminalizes abortion, or gender affirming care, and you plan and execute a plan of getting an abortion/receiving gender affirming care at a clinic, sending messages before, whilst in transit to, at, and returning from the clinic.

You plan, attend, and coordinate a pro palestinian or pro trans rights, or pro health care reform rally, which has some violent act occur, or perhaps even without that.

...

If Signal integrated with Meta, I mean WhatsApp, this would provide at least that bog standard metadata (which, again, is very often enough to profile and identify a person) and potentially actual msg content to WhatsApp from the Signal user, which would comprimise then Signal user's security... which defeats the entire point of using Signal.

For this not to be the case, Meta would have to agree to switch over to Signal's standards, which they will never do.

EDIT:

If Signal did integrate with Meta, and allow the user to msg a WhatsApp user, it would be leaking your IP every single time you do so, so basically it would have to put a warning on every msg you send that way, similar to Firefox warning you that the website you're trying to visit has no HTTPS or expired security credentials.

There's no point.

The classic tech company approach is embrace, extend, extinguish.

Lemmy and other fediverse people/communities recently learned this the hard way, trying to integrate with Meta and then oh whoops, looks like that'll be a one way relationship.

EDIT 2:

Its basically this meme, just replace 'minority social group' with 'privacy conscious users' (which apparently just actually is a minority social group at this point):