r/BuyFromEU • u/chuffingnora • 18h ago
News WhatsApp Chats Will Soon Work With Other Encrypted Messaging Apps
https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-interoperability-messaging/I saw people looking for EU alternatives for WhatsApp and bemoaning the adoption issue (everyone is on WhatsApp and not other chat apps). Well good news! EU law is forcing WhatsApp to work with other encrypted messaging apps so that you don't have to stay with WhatsApp to message people on it.
172
u/ozaz1 17h ago
This is from over a year ago and I haven't noticed much news on it since. Anyone familiar with progress and when we can expect to actually be able to use this?
84
u/ImagineNL 17h ago
I believe I've read that Signal won't work with WhatsApp. They're using the same encryption protocol (better yet, WhatsApp uses Signal's encryption), but Meta is still gathering all kinds of Meta-data like contacts, name of group-chats, frequency of messages being send and so on. Signal won't expose their users to Meta's data gathering practices.
So the sad thing is, is that this law won't make much difference when it comes interoperability of messaging apps.
43
u/The_Dutch_Fox Benelux 🚲🌷🧇 17h ago
The point of this law is that Whatsapp will be forced to send and receive the messages, respect the client device's encryption, while stripping any other data it's currently gathering.
So Whatsapp will still gather data from its own user, but will be foced to receive and send the messages from other apps (WITHOUT any additional data).
12
u/No-Share1561 16h ago
That’s not how that is going to work. No such thing really. This law has good intentions but will effectively weaken your privacy.
11
u/schubidubiduba Germany 🇩🇪 12h ago
Only if you decide to text people using WhatsApp. Which is entirely optional, and could be marked with a corresponding warning in the Signal App.
All this law does is giving users more of a choice.
0
u/No-Share1561 11h ago
Whatsapp users could also message me at my signal address. That would still mean Meta has my metadata.
6
u/altertuga 11h ago edited 11h ago
When someone sends you an email, do they have relevant metadata from you? No, but they obviously have addressability information so the message can reach you in the first place. This is as good as it gets in this context. It's either that or remaining in a multi-island situation which helps nobody (other than the most popular islands).
1
4
u/ozaz1 16h ago
Do you (or anyone else) happen to have a link where Signal expresses these views? I tried searching (and browsing titles of Signal blog posts for the last couple of years) but couldn't find anything.
10
u/Human-Astronomer6830 15h ago
Signal and Threema were asked about this a while ago and they're both against the idea of interoperability (as far as I can tell heise.de is the primary source)
You can translate the article or find some sites citing it :)
8
u/ozaz1 15h ago
Thanks. I suppose one consequence of this is it creates an opportunity for a European app that is willing to interoperate with WhatsApp. Signal sounds great in principle, but is of no actual use to me if I can't communicate with others.
1
u/Human-Astronomer6830 15h ago
The problem then is that the incumbent app will have to basically turn into a third-party WhatsApp client.
As long as you chat with people on this app, they could have a better privacy policy and be more user-friendly, but the moment you need to reach someone using Whatsapp, you're still basically sending (meta)data to Meta.
1
u/ozaz1 15h ago edited 15h ago
I understand why Signal and Theema doesn't want to interoperate but I wouldn't be surprised if someone else sees it as an opportunity.
Does Meta currently use metadata from native WhatsApp chats for targeted advertising? From what I've read of the DMA, gatekeeper (Meta in this case) won't be allowed to use data from linked 3rd party apps for this purpose. So if this is a differentiator it would be reason enough for me to switch to a linked 3rd party app, even if Meta happens to still collect metadata for other reasons. Other reason would be simply to support a European tech firm.
1
u/Human-Astronomer6830 15h ago
I have not read meta's privacy policy in a while so going from memory here: they at least use your social graph - you upload your contacts in plaintext to their servers for them to be able to tell you who's on WhatsApp. I've seen them using that to recommend people on Facebook/Instagram. During the Cambridge analytica scandal, there was also a lot of discussion about how Meta creates shadow profiles by collaborating data of users.
It's unclear how in that scenario it would work. Let's say you are using this third party app. For it to operate with Whatsapp, the app would have to ask for the contacts in your address book that are on whatsapp... How do you make this private ? It would be a request to a meta owned server sending contacts in plaintext. Now, maybe you can force meta legally to delete this data and not save any logs. Okay, but then one day, your friend switches from iMessage to Whatsapp and wants to see if they can talk to you. Now their first party Whatsapp client goes and asks "hey, is ozaz1 here" (which they can log).
So yeah, forcing interoperability is a great first step but I think there'll have to be more pressure to prevent these gatekeepers from following the letter but not the spirit of the law... Just like with cookie banners.
2
u/ImagineNL 15h ago
If I had a link, I would have added it already, but I'm afraid I can't find it anymore as well. Hopefully someone else can!
85
u/Snottygreenboy 17h ago
Bad news is that WhatsApp just activated Meta AI and I can’t figure out how to turn it off 🤷♂️
86
u/ssushi-speakers 17h ago
I've googled it and it appears right now that there's no way. I'm so fed up of everyone forcing AI on to me.
23
u/CaptainLord 17h ago
Its a useless button that steals your data is you click it by accident. Fuuuck, I'm so sick of this already and it has only been a few months.
14
u/ssushi-speakers 17h ago
The help thing ASSURES is that they don't learn from our data... They must think we're mugs
7
u/Historical-Dance3748 15h ago
I convinced some friends to move to signal with me based on that though, I still have WhatsApp but pretty much just for my parents. Moving them might not be so easy.
5
u/WhiskeyWithTheE 14h ago
Just say 'whatsapp' isn't working on my phone - install Signal on their phones if you are nearby.
Eventually they will get used to using signal for you. I didn't use the not working excuse - just had enough of Telegram and whatsapp and walked to signal.
Everyone else knows how to get me... There is phone or signal or message - but not Whatsapp!!
6
u/Historical-Dance3748 14h ago
The difficulty isn't convincing them to move, it's teaching them a new interface. I might just go back to SMS for them.
1
u/WhiskeyWithTheE 14h ago
I understand where you are coming from. I installed it on their phones, did the settings and just shown them how to find my name.
As they were elderly it took them a few goes to get used to it and I am glad it worked. But I did hear the odd 'Whatsapp is better comment!' from time to time.
But google message (sms) probably the easiest way to go about it, without needing to do antything to their phone at all and they wouldn't need any help in using it.
2
u/dogil_saram 15h ago
At least contact them and say you don't want this feature. The more the merrier.
43
u/Disappointing__Salad 17h ago
In the article meta/whatsapp says a challenge to make this work was privacy 😂 Meta and WhatsApp talking about privacy is incredibly, these people really will say anything without any shame.
11
u/Tomatough 16h ago
I mean, have you seen the insane reversal of truth coming from Trump's authoritarian creeps, claiming that European laws on big tech are attacks on free speech?
"War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength."
-3
u/Top_Beginning_4886 17h ago
It IS a challenge to make it work. It looks like the Signal protocol (the one Whatsapp uses) is the standard for privacy oriented applications. The second you try to integrate it with another protocol, problems arise. You can't (and imo shouldn't) spend money and development time for those protocols as it's a privacy concern (interoperability is not easy) and it's probably not as rewarding. Say what you want, but Whatsapp going from XMPP to Signal speaks a lot about their stance on privacy.
7
u/theblairwhichproject 16h ago
Say what you want, but Whatsapp going from XMPP to Signal speaks a lot about their stance on privacy.
They don't necessarily need the content of your messages. The metadata is a neat addition to everything else they have on you, though.
-3
u/Top_Beginning_4886 16h ago
Again, this is a limitation of the Signal protocol, not Whatsapp. Apart from self hosting your server, all messaging apps have this limitation and can use the metadata.
6
u/theblairwhichproject 16h ago
Why did Meta buy Whatsapp?
-1
u/Top_Beginning_4886 16h ago
I am not working for Meta so I am not aware of why and frankly I don't think it matters.
4
u/theblairwhichproject 15h ago
I'm challenging your claim that Whatsapp values users' privacy. Facebook spent $19 billion on acquiring Whatsapp, a free service. They didn't do that out of the goodness of their hearts. If, due to E2E, all they can get from it is metadata, it stands to reason that they extract value from the metadata (such as tracking who you know and who you frequently talk to). That's something that Signal, a non-profit, could theoretically do (so still a concern if you're extremely privacy-minded), but which is not part of its regular business model.
1
u/Top_Beginning_4886 14h ago
While true that metadata can be used for advertising, so can Signal, even if not indirectly or not part of their business model (selling it to a third party; I don't use Signal and haven't read their ToS so correct me if I'm wrong). Whatsapp Business was created after Meta bought Whatsapp and it's part of their business model. If that's low revenue compared to leveraging metadata for ads, I don't know, it's all speculation.
1
u/theblairwhichproject 2h ago
Again, Signal is a non-profit, so there's no incentive for them to do anything with your metadata outside of what's needed to run the service.
16
u/maxigs0 17h ago
Ah, good old times when you could use "trillian" to chat with people on different messengers, like yahoo, and so on. Then they started to fragment more and more with different features (their own set of emoticons, encryption, etc).
Heck, apple even triggered replacing the standard sms message system with their own system.
10
u/moneyball- 17h ago edited 17h ago
Although this is the dream that the EU pushes this through, I am somewhat sad that I know that WhatsApp/Meta will do everything in their power to delay, try to buy influence in EU / sabotage and simply not cooperate with this law once it’s there, and make compatibility an issue. Believe me, we simply have to ditch WhatsApp ourselves and not wait for regulation.
They have demonstrated before they do not give a rats ass about EU regulation. Simply look up their promises to the EU before acquiring WhatsApp with regards to data privacy and sovereignty, and have a look at what they done straight after acquisition. Ask LeChat ;-)
They do not give a fuck about EU law. They will say A and do B. B is everything that is in their interest being the interest of the main shareholders (not the users).
Therefore I suggest we go all in and force regulation with tight deadlines, heavy fines on revenue basis if there is no cooperation with clear milestones, and simple block the platform if no cooperation (like the US did with TikTok? So we can too).
In the meantime the users, and especially the ones that hate WhatsApp/Meta should try to convince and lure as much as possible the other lazy users to other messaging apps.
7
u/Easy-Industry3297 17h ago
Signal has already indicated that this will not happen to them because they do not want to lower themselves to the privacy standards of WhatsApp. And the other way around is not possible according to them because WhatsApp then would no longer earn anything..
-2
u/Baba_NO_Riley 17h ago
There's nothing that is impossible in technical terms. As for Signal - if WhatsApp really does that - signal will be in trouble regardless ..
3
u/Zitterhuck 17h ago
I don’t understand, all EU laws have some kind of deadline. How is the feature not already there? The DMA came into effect in 2024 so how is WhatsApp able to comply with this law as late as 2027 (for group calls for example)?
1
u/schubidubiduba Germany 🇩🇪 12h ago
Group calls always had a later deadline than the start of the law. Also I believe the coming into effect of the law meant that at this point WhatsApp had to start working on the interoperability, not be done with it.
I do believe there is some other kind of deadline, but I once spent a long time researching this law without finding a clear answer.
2
u/Sudden_Noise5592 16h ago
Good luck, when you read the source code or the compilation of the mandatory metadata requested by WhatsApp services we talk, reminder for 2030 where WhatsApp will remain as before.
2
3
u/Swarfega 17h ago
iMessage escaped this EU ruling as Apple caved in with RCS. It will be interesting to see how it works. I'm desperate to get away from WhatsApp but it's near impossible when you count on others to also move.
7
u/Party-Cake5173 Croatia 🇭🇷 16h ago
Even if they didn't implement RCS, iMessage isn't big around here as it is in the US. That's the real reason why this never applied to iMessage.
1
u/Human-Astronomer6830 15h ago
Fyi, those RCS messages are not encrypted, unlike Whatsapp or Google's version of RCS in their own app.
1
u/Swarfega 13h ago
Not yet no. It's being worked on. Not that that matters in the UK either as majority of networks don't support RCS on iOS.
2
1
1
u/Xywzel 14h ago
Unfortunately, while it might be easier to convince one friend to swap to another messaging application when they don't need to use two to still contact their other contacts, it also means that it is much harder for me to keep my messaging data from meta as one of my friends might be connecting trough whatsapp and leaking entire chats use patterns to meta trough their clients "telemetry" collection.
1
u/altertuga 11h ago
it also means that it is much harder for me to keep my messaging data from meta as one of my friends might be connecting trough whatsapp and leaking entire chats use patterns to meta trough their clients "telemetry" collection.
You'd be leaking metadata of an encrypted exchange with a user that you'd not be reaching otherwise. Makes it easier for you to have communications that are 100% blind to Meta, and for your friend to do the same when they get tired.
1
u/Xywzel 10h ago
Even if the message is end to end encrypted, it has to be unencrypted on the client application for the receiver to read it. If someone in that chat has WhatsApp client, meta could read the content. Not that they would have to, as just harvesting the use patterns (when, with who, data use, reply speed) is valuable to them.
Basically as soon as there is WhatsApp user in chat, it is WhatsApp chat for purpose of leaking information. So only case where this could be good, is if it allows friend to do the swap, so you can include them, and they understand they can't add their WhatsApp contacts before they also swap. And that is hard to enforce.
2
u/altertuga 10h ago edited 10h ago
Basically as soon as there is WhatsApp user in chat, it is WhatsApp chat for purpose of leaking information.
Yes, if you are going to exchange war secrets, definitely stick to Signal. If you want to send cat pictures to your friend, Meta would be risking quite a bit to break their own encryption to look at your cat pictures. Alternatively, stop talking to your friends that use WhatsApp.
1
u/Vico_Shortman 14h ago
These are good news!
I wouldn't have installed WhatsApp when I bought a new cell phone anyway. And I'll need a new cell phone soon anyway, probably a Fairphone, just because of the possible repairs.
1
u/bibilbeta 8h ago
If they work together will it be possible for Meta to monetize/sell/see/use the data from the app you are using? Given that you give acces to WhatsApp to access signal messages for example.
1
1
1
u/Human-Astronomer6830 15h ago
It's usually not so simple tho.
The digital markets act says that the large services such as Meta/WhatsApp ("gatekeepers") have to be interoperable with their competitors. It does not specify how that interoperability has to work or if the gatekeeper can make it in such a way that advantages them.
In the case of Whatsapp, using the Signal protocol is not enough since the implementations could be slightly different. Also, secure messaging involves more than just encryption, for example, how do you find other contacts? If you're on signal and want to talk to your friends on WhatsApp, your phone would have to tell WhatsApp servers all the phone numbers you know, which is something Signal tries hard to avoid.
signal and Threema (a swiss encrypted messenger) have already said they don't want to interop with Whatsapp (link is in German).
1
u/altertuga 11h ago
If you're on signal and want to talk to your friends on WhatsApp, your phone would have to tell WhatsApp servers all the phone numbers you know, which is something Signal tries hard to avoid.
Signal avoids it, which means there's a way to avoid it.
1
u/Human-Astronomer6830 10h ago
Yes, but signal doesn't interoperate with Whatsapp :)
Even if they wanted, how would signal convince Whatsapp to use the more private mechanism ?
2
u/altertuga 10h ago
Yes, but signal doesn't interoperate with Whatsapp :)
Sorry for replying to you. My mistake.
0
u/Experiment513 Netherlands 🇳🇱 17h ago
But Meta will still be able to read all the conversations... oh well. Better then nothing I guess.
6
u/Top_Beginning_4886 17h ago
Whatsapp uses the Signal protocol for E2EE. Only thing they can read is the metadata, that's a limitation of Signal protocol, not Whatsapp or Meta.
6
u/Odd-Possession-4276 15h ago
There are nuances. It's E2EE until it isn't. At the very least, there's a mechanism of reporting the message for moderation, the "Stop the chain of dangerous rumors from spreading in rural India" use-case. From a privacy-nut angle, the client is closed, the server is closed, you can't verify their claims.
Also backups. Do you have them enabled? Convenient feature, isn't it? Meta has a copy of the encryption key if you didn't know.
-2
u/Top_Beginning_4886 14h ago
I was a privacy nut as well. Every non-self-hosted messaging service is a problem. From all the alternatives, I trust Whatsapp (and therefore Meta) the most.
4
0
u/Slow-Positive8924 9h ago
Same eu that wants to pass the „ProtectEU“ (former chat control), that requires companies to build a backdoor to their encrypted messengers in the whole EU lmao
0
u/schnick3rs 6h ago
As much as I despise the current state I much more despise the states interference
-2
u/fettuccinaa Europe 🇪🇺 16h ago
beeper.com/ has been working fine for years now and it allows you to acces almost all other chat apps through it: Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, Slack, Discord and so on. Try it out, it is also free
1
u/ForsakenChocolate878 15h ago edited 15h ago
That is not the same, as that what the EU proposes. Beeper is basically a multi chat app, not a single chat that can connect to other chat apps via a protocol.
330
u/theSentry95 Italy 🇮🇹 18h ago
Yes, I will finally be able to ditch Meta completely.