[INJAXN]

I am also moving to Signal and have advised friends and family to download Signal.

I have an account on telegram also, only to be part of my housing society group, where number of users are 200+. I found that telegram has lots of pirated content, almost all new releases either on OTT or in theaters can be found on telegram within a day. It is also very easy to join groups where such content is published.

[Thad E Ginathom]

When I said Whatsapp is just a tool, I was really out of touch with the current reasons for discussion of it: consolidation of, and farming of yet more info by, parent-company Facebook.

So, sure, in terms of the amount of time that people spend attached to individuals and groups on Whatsapp, it's just a tool, and there is no obligation to that. My Whatsapp use is daily, but my Whatsapp minutes per day are not very many. I spend most of my minutes on a handful of forums!

Anyway, I now understand that the question is not about replying to 200 Good-mornings: it is about whether or not we should give this app houseroom, or machine room. Or... complete access to our data.

Many people seem to be in favour of Signal as an alternative. Some are heavily negative about Telegram: I'm interested in learning more about that.

[kiku007]

Signal may or may not be the silver bullet to privacy issues caused by the Facebook-Whatsapp duo but this fiasco by Whatsapp has triggered a conversation and more people are dumping Whatsapp. This is the last straw that broke the donkey's back.

I was waiting for something like this to happen for more people to start taking ownership of their data and take their privacy seriously. Now I can dump Whatsapp too since my network is moving away from it. iMessage, Signal or Slack works fine for me.

Sadly many aren't fully comprehending what's happening even now. No Elon Musk doesn't own Signal nor is Whatsapp's encryption crappy. The following article in Forbes provides a good detailed report for those who don't mind getting enlightened the right way,

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoff...h=23ab94876cf5

[Samurai]

I don't have instagram account. I haven't installed FB on my phone since 5 years or so. Whatsapp user before FB bought it. I kept it only because everyone I knew was on it. I do have a FB account which I maintain purely for keeping in touch with old friends and family whom I can't meet otherwise.

I switched to Signal yesterday, already nudged 4 of my frequent groups to switch to Signal. I will still keep whatsapp infrequent stuff.

However, I am stilling wondering about the business model of Signal. Who pays for the server & storage?

Originally Posted by INJAXN

I have an account on telegram also, only to be part of my housing society group, where number of users are 200+. I found that telegram has lots of pirated content, almost all new releases either on OTT or in theaters can be found on telegram within a day. It is also very easy to join groups where such content is published.

This is the reason why I am keeping away from Telegram.

[gkveda]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I don't have instagram account. I haven't installed FB on my phone since 5 years or so. Whatsapp user before FB bought it. I kept it only because everyone I knew was on it. I do have a FB account which I maintain purely for keeping in touch with old friends and family whom I can't meet otherwise.

Mostly my case. I have never been on any social media so far.

Installed whatsapp first time, one year ago.

My whatsapp usage is limited to 3 groups only and once in a while, some individual chats

One - my family group with 4 people,
Two - my friends group with 10 people and last one is official group which I am silent spectator.

I never shop online (i just do browse only to find out the rate). Then, i will visit some local shop, do negotiate with vendors face to face and purchase by hard cash.

Will use credit card mostly for only petrol or diesel.

Given the above scenario, how will I be affected with the changed terms and conditions? Curious to know

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by gkveda

Given the above scenario, how will I be affected with the changed terms and conditions? Curious to know

WA will access through your mobile the following - your address book, your bank details (if you do internet banking on mobile), user ID, device ID, location & geographic movement, payment data and history, data usage and content usage. Experts, please correct or add to my list.

Basically Mark Zuckerberg is saying I am giving you a free service which you use a lot so don't pay me in currency pay me with your data.

Most will blindly sign up. Some will bother to read the notice and decide. I am unsure. I try to keep a reasonable limit to my digital footprint - no FB, no Instagram and no share or banking transactions on mobile. Not sure what I'll do. Given that I almost don't shop online except books and aircraft scale models my data may not be of much use to MarkZee. But fundamentally Mark Zee is probably the least ethical of the big tech firm owners. He is trying very hard to be the Big Brother for the whole world. US anti-Trust will clutch in at some point. It may be too late for the fig leaf of digital privacy we have left.

[s4ch]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

WA will access through your mobile the following - your address book, your bank details (if you do internet banking on mobile), user ID, device ID, location & geographic movement, payment data and history, data usage and content usage. Experts, please correct or add to my list.

Correction: Bank/Transaction details only if you use WhatsApp payment services (e.g. UPI in India). Not related at all if you use other individual banking apps.

There is so much hype about this at the moment, but what most people don’t realise is that Google already collects similar data if you use an Android phone, and Apple too (but not so extensively) if you use an iPhone.

Everyone needs to realise, that yes, data is being collected and shared to Facebook, but the most important data, I.e. the content of your messages are not being shared as they are end to end encrypted. Calm down everyone!

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by s4ch

the content of your messages are not being shared as they are end to end encrypted. Calm down everyone!

I don't trust them not to have backdoor encryption keys. The term of service update was a bit too much.

Originally Posted by Samurai

However, I am stilling wondering about the business model of Signal. Who pays for the server & storage?

Socialism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)#Servers

The development of Signal and its predecessors at Open Whisper Systems was funded by a combination of consulting contracts, donations and grants.[193] The Freedom of the Press Foundation acted as Signal's fiscal sponsor.[37][194][195] Between 2013 and 2016, the project received grants from the Knight Foundation,[196] the Shuttleworth Foundation,[197] and almost $3 million from the US government–sponsored Open Technology Fund.[198] Signal is now developed by Signal Messenger LLC, a software company founded by Moxie Marlinspike and Brian Acton in 2018, which is wholly owned by a tax-exempt nonprofit corporation called the Signal Technology Foundation, also created by them in 2018. The Foundation was funded with an initial loan of $50 million from Acton, "to support, accelerate, and broaden Signal's mission of making private communication accessible and ubiquitous".[37][22][199] All of the organization's products are published as free and open-source software.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by s4ch

There is so much hype about this at the moment, but what most people don’t realise is that Google already collects similar data if you use an Android phone, and Apple too (but not so extensively) if you use an iPhone.

No, people do realise. But google is using it to show ADs. FB on the other hand is selling the information to shady companies who can use that to create political misinformation campaigns.

The Brexit or the Capital Hill storming last week was all made possible by FB, not google.

And now Whatsapp data will be fully exposed like FB data. FB is essentially saying the following to Whatsapp users.

[Hayek]

Don’t see any reason to panic here. WhatsApp chats are still end to end encrypted. Media you send on WhatsApp is accessible to them. All they are saying is three things 1) They can share the meta data such as your contact lists with their parent company (why is that news); 2) when you interact with Business accounts, that data can be integrated with Facebook; 3) They can link ads you click on in FB or IG with WhatsApp Pay. Don’t think it is a big deal.

Personally, don’t care for privacy. The fact is that any social media use (including TBHP) creates digital footprints which will be used to target advertising to you. I find that useful - if I get discount offers from ASICS shoes or accessories for my cars or resorts Is any to stay in, that is great.

Let’s see how this goes. FB is probably betting there will be some noise and then it will blow over, and people will come back to WA. But who knows? Network effects are tricky and just like all of us moved from Orkut and MySpace to FB, perhaps chat moves to Signal (which will suddenly need much larger donations to keep working)

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by Hayek

Don’t see any reason to panic here. WhatsApp chats are still end to end encrypted. Media you send on WhatsApp is accessible to them. All they are saying is three things...

I also believe there is no need to panic here. The impact as I see it for each of the above:

1) They can share the meta data such as your contact lists with their parent company (why is that news);

Very likely impact: FB sells list of phone numbers for very location specific data.

Or if you are part of a college group (and the college name can be derived from the group name), then FB will have this meta data now.

Same for any associations like apartment/society/religious WA groups etc. If 2 people belong to same WA group, they can form an association and serve ads based on the other person's activities.

Unlikely but possible impact: You might start getting FB friend recommendations of your neighborhood WhatsApp uncles, who are not on your contact list but in common WhatsApp groups.

2) when you interact with Business accounts, that data can be integrated with Facebook;

Example, I took a two-wheeler insurance last month and the insurance company sent me the policy via their WhatsApp Business account. As the media/attachments are not encrypted, FB/WA algorithms will be able to read the policy and send me targeted ads when policy is due for renewal.
Similar, for any airline/hotel or any other businesses send tickets/invoices via WhatsApp Business account.

This is similar to Gmail algorithms reading your mails and sending you payment/schedule reminders for invoices/tickets. This has been a Gmail "feature" for years now.

This is akin to actively 'liking' a business page on FB.

3) They can link ads you click on in FB or IG with WhatsApp Pay.

Or vice-versa. If you pay a business via WhatsApp pay, they will serve you related ads.

In recent years Facebook has lost a lot of users especially of the younger demographics. There are fewer active users who login to FB, and lot less users actively 'Like' any businesses/associations.

This is the way for FB to generate 'Likes' and other associations (e.g. apartment/society/college/religious) passively.

[Q] Can WA/FB read content of my messages?
[A] As of now, No. But this can change, mainly because governments may want them to introduce back-door entry as part of national security.

[Q] So is your bank account and money safe?
[A] Yes. Do NOT panic. Apply normal precautions (do not share passwords/OTP/Pin).

[Q] Should you move to Signal?
[A] Yes, to whatever possible extent. It is always better to diversify. Do not let any corporation get monopolistic power.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by Hayek

Personally, don’t care for privacy. The fact is that any social media use (including TBHP) creates digital footprints which will be used to target advertising to you. I find that useful - if I get discount offers from ASICS shoes or accessories for my cars or resorts Is any to stay in, that is great.

I agree privacy is not an issue. In fact, companies like FB or Google want us to focus on privacy and then feel satisfied when the privacy is addressed by end-to-end encryption. This is what is known as red herring. It works very well.

Originally Posted by Samurai

I have an unusual view on this because of my professional background. Prior to 90s, individuals didn't really have the luxury of encryption. Take telephone system, every government in the world could tap calls according to the laws of the country. There was no technical challenges to it. The very first electronic exchanges (like 1ESS) came with options to tap calls. Other communications like email, fax, telegraph, postal mail or courier system had no encryption either. Even if you did encrypt by hand, the governments always had better cryptographers than individuals. The companies that could afford large computers had access to cryptography, but they were subject to US government restriction too. It was illegal to export encryption software that could use keys bigger than 40bits. If you were downloading a Internet browser in mid 90s from India, you could only download a 40 bit encryption browser.

In 1991, PGP software finally enabled individuals to use 128bit encryption. That means the US government couldn't break it. The author of PGP got into lot of legal trouble with US government.

In other words, individuals got the ability to communicate privately only 18 years ago. But most people started benefiting from it in the last 5 years. We never had it before. Phones are still not encrypted. Most emails are not encrypted. But we are all worried whether the good morning message on whatsapp from aunty is end-to-end encrypted.

So, what am I worried about? Something else actually. And I have the benefit of being exposed to this very early when nobody thought there was anything wrong about it.

Somewhere in the 90s, I was an young architect helping the sales team make technical proposals. The customer was a large conglomerate owning dozens of different businesses, including, telephone, mobile, credit card, insurance, internet service, email service, etc. The NDA expired long ago, and the business model discussed there is now the bread-n-butter of companies like FB. They wanted to combine the customer information from dozens of businesses into a single database, so that they can identify unique customers. Without that they were counting the same customer multiple times. For example, a single household was being counted as 9 different customers across their databases. I asked how would you know, since you don't have the integrated database. The customer replied that it was his house, and he and family used 9 different services of his company. The company treated the mobile phones, landline, credit card, car insurance, internet service all as different customer. The company could count 100 million customers, while the reality was... they didn't know. They could only guess, it could be 15-20 million only. So this was a big problem for their marketing team. How to promote new business to their own customer, while not knowing what they already use.

So the privacy thing came up, since US privacy laws are quite strict even those days. The customer told that is not an issue since they won't expose any personal information across their business units. Besides, they already had permission from their customer to send promotional materials via postal mail. I don't know how it is now, but in the 90s and before, every mailbox in US would receive tons of such material.

They had realised that just combining their databases would give them amazing amount of marketing information, to achieve segmentation, efficient targeting of Ads, and also decide how to allocate marketing budget. BTW, this was before AI & ML. But there was something called data cube, which can give answers to numerous queries just using metadata while not keeping any raw data. It can provide 360 degree views, by knowing all the people you interact with, and places you visit. Generic consumer behavior profiles can be built. You could ask the cube, "give me the list of all customers who are most likely to purchase a mobile service". The cube spit out the answer and they can send the fliers of mobile services to those customers. It all sounded like magic in those days. One person at that time described it as the broom phenomena. Each broomstick is quite useless, just like any personal data. A single broom stick, certain length, width, color, individual blemishes, etc. It has all the details, but not really powerful/useful by itself. If I give you give you a broomstick, you will throw it away soon in the trash. But combine 200 broomsticks, you have a useful broom. It can be used for functions that a single broomstick is utterly incapable of. In fact, the individual properties of broomstick is not at all important or required. The group behavior is way more important and useful than private information, and it lets them target the customer individually without stepping on any privacy laws.

The business model of FB took it to the next level. It has data that can be used for building psychological model of each FB user in every country. And it sells access to this data to any paying customer. The customer can build their own data cube, now even more terrifying because of far advanced AI/ML and faster computing power. They can ask questions like, "which individuals are more susceptible to left or right wing propaganda", and those individuals can be selectively targeted and slowly brainwashed according to customer needs. This has been so successfully done in both Brexit and last two US elections.

Individually, one doesn't have to panic. After all, we all consider ourselves astute and capable of seeing through propaganda. We are broomsticks, and we don't really think about the broom. But companies like FB only see brooms and they sell brooms.

[AZT]

From a utility point of view I'd rather uninstall facebook than Whatsapp. Telegram will never replace Whatsapp and we'll just end up having to use both for different groups. A lot of stock market tips and betting groups groups are active on telegram and this isn't exactly allowed legally so I'm not convinced if this app is a good alternative. Funny thing is Hike messenger is shutting down right when people are looking for an alternative so I'm not even sure if this was a backroom deal to shut it down.

This whole conversation is why tech monopoly is bad. One company controlling Whatsapp, Instagram and Facebook is a recipe for disaster. Same can be said for Microsoft, Google and Amazon.

[shashank.nk]

If you care about privacy and have a profile on FB,Insta and Whatsapp, uninstalling WhatsApp alone serves no purpose really. The question is, how many of us who actively use the app can give up Instagram ? I for one can't, atleast not immediately as I share photos I take and also follow many photographers' work to get better at clicking. We've been pondering over the thought of having a separate group to move this away from Instagram as well.

So to somewhat negate having to use WhatsApp/Instagram almost exclusively to message friends, I've moved to Signal and had asked a few friends to consider moving too. Last week no one was ready, now two have signed up and from all the negative press more will follow and mostly only groups will be left on WhatsApp where I don't share sensitive information or personal stuff anyway.

[Jaggu]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I agree privacy is not an issue.
====
But companies like FB only see brooms and they sell brooms.

Very nicely explained, the amount of hype this conversation has got and cynics moving to signal without really understanding the basics of how this business model works is crazy!

I have already sold my soul by having an internet presence with facebook, instagram, gmail, using google services and having smartphones. Honestly, i have never read any of the service agreement fine print for any of these services. Whatever they need is already culled out and I know for a fact much more info is available with my banks than the social media for now. So it is a pointless "me too" movement for me to join.

One thought I had was with an open-source code base, won't a platform like signal be an easier target for hackers and espionage folks lol??