Skype does it, too, by the way, in case that's also a surprise. Probably most of the ones that don't use end-to-end encryption by default do. And now that Brian Acton left WhatsApp, you should be very careful with what you saw in WhatsApp's end-to-end encrypted chats, too.
The fact that it is owned by Facebook is enough to make me stay away.
That’s fair, but I think it’s important to be very explicit if that’s the criticism.
It’s true that Facebook can see your contacts list if you share it with WhatsApp but no one ever claimed that they couldn’t. This isn’t a security vulnerability as such.
The second article you linked is from before WhatsApp’s move to the Signal protocol.
Yes, it’s owned by Facebook and yes, it’s closed source, but WhatsApp has brought end-to-end encryption to over a billion people. For the vast majority of use cases it’s a huge security improvement.
I was just wondering why the leave of Brian Acton would change anything significantly.
Besides that I would never touch WhatsApp. The fact that they hand your phone number over to facebook is one of many reasons to stay far away of this messenger.
Comments
Facebook has been actively monitoring Messenger messages for years.
https://mashable.com/2012/07/12/facebook-scanning-chats/
Skype does it, too, by the way, in case that's also a surprise. Probably most of the ones that don't use end-to-end encryption by default do. And now that Brian Acton left WhatsApp, you should be very careful with what you saw in WhatsApp's end-to-end encrypted chats, too.
Why?
There have been numerous reports about the insecurities of WhatsApp over the years.
For instance: http://www.information-age.com/whatsapp-can-read-users-encry...
The Guardian, that initially published this “insecurity”, has been heavily criticized by security experts for their article: https://mashable.com/2017/01/20/experts-demand-guardian-retr...
If there are other insecurities, please post them here - I haven’t heard of others than this one.
There's also this: http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-techno...
And this: http://www.businessinsider.com/whatsapp-security-2014-2?r=US...
The fact that it is owned by Facebook is enough to make me stay away.
That’s fair, but I think it’s important to be very explicit if that’s the criticism.
It’s true that Facebook can see your contacts list if you share it with WhatsApp but no one ever claimed that they couldn’t. This isn’t a security vulnerability as such.
The second article you linked is from before WhatsApp’s move to the Signal protocol.
Yes, it’s owned by Facebook and yes, it’s closed source, but WhatsApp has brought end-to-end encryption to over a billion people. For the vast majority of use cases it’s a huge security improvement.
I was just wondering why the leave of Brian Acton would change anything significantly.
Besides that I would never touch WhatsApp. The fact that they hand your phone number over to facebook is one of many reasons to stay far away of this messenger.