As everyone must have seen today, facebook updated WhatsApps privacy policy to start sharing data collected from WhatsApp with other F*ckbook products.
I'd love to switch but by doing so I would be isolating myself from friends and family that use WhatsApps exclusively.
How would you go about convincing them to switch to something like Telegram?
0. Removing myself from all active WhatsApp groups.
1. Setting the WhatsApp status to 'Message me on Signal or Email me' and not responding to non-important messages till they message on Signal or Email me.
2. When someone asks if we can continue our conversation on WhatsApp, politely informing them that I don't use WhatsApp and asking them to message on Signal.
3. Setting a Tasker auto reply for WhatsApp, informing the sender that I'm not available on WhatsApp and they have to message me on Signal or Email me.
3.a. Updated the reply message with 'My WhatsApp account will be deleted on Feb 8 for not accepting new T&C' and has set the status as such too.
4.Setting Signal as the default SMS client (Can invite people easily via SMS, perhaps added protection against SMS exploits).
The issue here is that it's a sudden approach. Humans are creatures of habit, and shifting interpersonal relationships slowly matters. This is not an API migration to a new provider where you push a commit or two and it's done. If you explain why, then the other person may even sympathise. If you don't, you will be seen as unreasonable and puritanical.
My primary mode of communication is email, 100% for professional communication. Yes, there are people who are offended when I impose such communication criteria and I've lost business opportunities.
But thoughtful communications due to non-real-time nature of email has qualitatively increased and not having to touch the phone often has resulted in better physical and mental health(the whole reason for me making these major changes in first place)[1].
[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25619584 (Related comment on another thread with more details and a good counter opinion).
Why are you suggesting that everyone needs to bow to peer pressure or they’re arrogant?
If I suddenly decide one day I don’t want to drink alcohol but all my friends do, if they see me as arrogant because of that, that’s their problem, not mine. I’m under no obligation to slowly stop drinking because of them.
Thanks for this :-)
Run it on webbrowser at home / cloud instance and proxy msgs but drop all FB trackings?
Any pro/con to this approach?
If not separate hardware, Android VM or Anbox would theoretically work but would be of more hassle considering WhatsApp actively detects 3rd party ROMS and android VMs/Anbox are not generally stable.
After they removed it due to lack of active users i gave them a bad rating on the play store only to return because i dropped my mistrust of them as a middleman.
Setting it as default SMS client prevents to get 2FA tokens from applications like Amazon, Dropbox, Paypal, or at least, they come with a huge delay.
Some think this is a hardline, but my security is important to me, and true friends and family need to respect that.
It's kind of like how my sister is vegan, so when she comes over for dinner, I cook vegan dishes for her. I respect and accommodate her lifestyle choices, and she does likewise by communicating with me via my preferred medium. Conversely, for example, I no longer talk to one cousin because he ignored requests to use a safe messaging app, and that is OK too.
Not meaning to not boycott such apps with those you can, just giving another pov from elsewhere in life. Most of my phones are rooted and without google for years, but sometimes...
Life is short, human communication is deep and fragile. Tools do change, renew and improve, while as living humans we get older ;)
I agree. That's why I'm available on 3 platforms that cover everyone I'm in contact with (phone, sms and email) and I can be choosy about any others I'm on.
If your threat model DOES include US intelligence agencies, you shouldn't use almost any mainstream browser, most protocols (including https://), social media (including HN), etc...
If only those people will try to have privacy, it will be much easier to target them. Everyone should have privacy to protect them. It’s sort of like freedom of speech is necessary not just for journalists, but for everyone, even if you have nothing to say.
No, you can simply use Qubes OS and use whatever software you want in disposable VMs and perhaps have several identities. It works for me (or so I hope).
Well, I consider getting targetted facebook ads based on the content of my whatsapp messages to be insecure.
Being secure also means secure against the company that created/provides the software also.
This is ok tradeoff for me. Its fine. Being able to video chat with my parents trumps everything else.
Most people who really want to communicate with me via an IM service acquiesce and install Signal.
I think people overstate how difficult it is to get somebody to install Signal. I've got a 100% conversion rate amongst my extended family.
Then to win whatever argument they fire at me I reply with something like “Thanks for your insight Dave but I’m not asking you to quit WhatsApp. I’m just asking you to use Signal for our group chat and to keep in touch with me. You are welcome to use WhatsApp to keep in touch with others. I’ve done my research, I know what they are doing at a technical level and have decided to stop using WhatsApp.” A statement like this opens up very few avenues for argument because you are not directly accusing the other person of being ignorant. So they will not usually feel the need to defend themselves. You are merely informing them of your preference. They may feel the need to remind you of their argument and the best way to reply to that is to paraphrase their argument accurately even if you don’t agree with it. I know it’s mean and manipulative but arguing about privacy is just a waste of time IMO. Some people get it, some just don’t. Leave it be.
- the app is now so much better that I was confused last time I used WhatsApp (I also think WhatsApp must have gone backwards, it was better before, wasn't it?)
- better admin tools for groups (mute, disallow stickers etc)
- disappearing chats. More convenience than security IMO but still something I use with my wife. I always lock my phone, but she lets our kids borrow it sometimes and I'd not to share everything we tell each with the kids :-)
- scheduled messages: remember lunch Lisa!
- and for your geek friends: actually open source, multiple client goodness. And APIs. And bots that you can create yourselves.
And it seems like may others do too: https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1347240006444675072
edit: typo
I am French and we do use WA a lot but only on a social level, not (yet?) as a way to contact businesses.
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"WhatsApp is now sucking all of your convos (including baby photos, etc.) into Facebook with their recent policy update. We're switching our family group chat to Signal".
My mom, who's nearly 70 did it almost instantaneously.
EDIT: My parents began to understand why FB is bad by reading books and watching documentaries. Those spooked them about how harmful it is for kids. So the "think of the children" might be a good motivator too.
You don't know that. Sure the messages are (claimed to be) e2e encrypted. But key exchange goes through Whatsapp (Facebook) servers. So they could give themselves access easily enough if they wanted to.
How do we know for sure?
It is closed source. We have to rely on reverse engeneering or whistleblowers inside FB.
Technically, maybe not, but do the semantics really matter here?
those messages are absolutely going to be sucked by facebook in some manner - either exactly like messenger (i.e. full mitm) or at least some keywords, object identification in photos/movies, etc.
Just start using both, and convince a few close family members (spouse/parents) to start using the app. People cannot be forced into using a new product. On the other hand, they will automatically use the better product if their network is on both.
Now my parents and partner are comfortable with both Whatsapp and Telegram. They use Whatsapp more heavily than I do, but they can comfortably use both. Since Telegram is better (from a product perspective), they also use Telegram when talking to each other.
IMO we can't tear down network effects easily, especially when the negative consequences of using one of the products is seemingly non consequential. We just have to move brick by brick.
FWIW you can just disable this in the settings.
as for the rest, I let them handle the inconvenience of having to call/email me stuff... sometimes they dont, and thats fine, I just dont bother. if its important, people find a way.