Nothing suggests that WhatsApp’s encryption protocol has been broken or that Meta can read the contents of your conversations.
Nothing prevents them from reading the messages prior to encryption or after decryption.
Well not nothing. Android apps are quite easy to reverse engineer so there would be a high risk of them getting caught which would be quite damaging for WhatsApp’s brand.
I wouldn’t say it’s a lot, but it isn’t nothing.
There is certainly nothing technical stopping them from doing it, but that’s true of Signal too.
Well not nothing. Android apps are quite easy to reverse engineer so there would be a high risk of them getting caught which would be quite damaging for WhatsApp’s brand.
none of their users would care. but also good luck finding a news site that cares to write about it and has some reach
There is certainly nothing technical stopping them from doing it, but that’s true of Signal too.
isn’t signal built reproducibly, without obfuscation?
Not currently, but in theory that is better, true.
I was thinking about signal, and a fun fact is that if we invite all our friends and families to signal, then practically “none” of its users would care about such an incident either
https://faq.whatsapp.com/414631957536067/
Either the report function doesn’t work like they say, or messages are stored decrypted, or they can decrypt messages at will based on a simple request from another user
Edit: fixed
hhttps://
I think I have to decrypt this url before I can open it
/edit: I did it! I was able to decrypt it!
When you report a user in an individual chat, WhatsApp receives up to five of the last messages they’ve sent to you.
This particular function is not at odds with E2EE. The client can either:
- Send decrypted messages to the server. This is flawed because a malicious client can fake them, setting someone up for a ban;
- Send the keys so that the server can decrypt the messages. Depending on how often keys are rotated, this might leak a couple more messages than intended.
You’re right, the messages would not be decrypted by the server but by the client making the report. Key rotation also shouldn’t be an issue because it uses a ratcheting chain key. But if the non-malicious client is already set up to send decrypted messages to the server, this seems antithetical to the idea that WhatsApp can’t read your conversations. There are clear caveats without even introducing the idea of a malicious client potentially exfiltrating decrypted messages elsewhere. Signal on the other hand receives the reported senders phone number and an encrypted message ID, presumably acting on spam reports by relying on multiple reports of the same message from the same sender, rather than by reading the message
You have to be stupid to think WhatsApp, a Facebook company, doesn’t have access to your messages.
They ran a bunch of full page adds this summer. All it said was “no one can see your messages but you.” I immediately decided that was not true, otherwise why advertise it?
Half of messengers advertise privacy
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Proton’s official account said the company was “alerted by a CERT that certain accounts were being misused by hackers in violation of Proton’s Terms of Service,”
Proton’s CEO later announced that the accounts were reinstated, following another post by the company that said the company does “stand with journalists,” but that it “cannot see the content of accounts and therefore cannot always know when anti-abuse measures may inadvertently affect legitimate activism.”
Sounds reasonable to me? It’s not a good look but it sounds like they quickly re-instated the closed accounts. The article title is misleading.
The only reason they reinstated the accounts was because people blew them up on social media. If the appeals process failed them, it will definitely fail the average joe who doesn’t have the same level of influence online.
I’ve been a paying Proton user for years, and had already been looking for the exit, but this is the straw the broke the camel’s back. Using Nym for my VPN now, looking to migrate my other services soon.
Both being unsafe seems the most probably state of things.
Still, something unsafe can still be safer than every other option ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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What open standard (that are not used by proton too)? If anything proton uses GPG while tuta uses a custom system (which is why they also encrypt the subject).
Proton does PGP for you. There are countless standards compliant mail services where you could use your own email client and do your own PGP -Thunderbird is probably the easiest but It’s a trade-off.
Tuta also locks you down with their lack of IMAP support. You can only use their client. At least Proton has a bridge and allows you to use your own GPG key.
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This does feel like a random lash out after this story, the reports of the CEO earlier this year and the reports that they were going to move out of Switzerland.
Let’s just randomly punch down at something the vast majority of our users wouldn’t trust already?
I’d understand writing something like this if they were about to launch their own messenger product. But even then, this article doesn’t offer anything new.
WhatsApp is not open-source, you can’t compile the client yourself. It doesn’t matter if it’s been audited by a third party. That version could’ve easily been backdoor-free.
I get people may enjoy the technical aspects to WhatsApps privacy. It’s a meta app and therefore is not safe, which should be basic critical thinking.
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Attaullah Baig, who ran WhatsApp’s security team between 2021 and 2025, says the app isn’t nearly as private as Meta claims. In his lawsuit, he alleges that roughly 1,500 employees have access to sensitive user information, including location, profile photos, group memberships, and contact lists.
Also unaddressed account takeovers.
Group memberships and contact lists are golden data for both Meta and snoopy governments.
Literally owned by Facebook. No, Whatsapp is not safe.
Almost everyone I know has left WhatsApp for Telegram anyway.
