• miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Interoperability is a weird one though. Imagine WhatsApp can connect to Signal, and people use this feature. What would then be the point of using Signal, if WhatsApp gets the data after all?

    (Signal has already announced not wanting to support this, I just used it as an example)

    • Knusper@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      As I understand it, your example should be the other way around. WhatsApp will need to offer a public API to allow Signal to send and receive messages to/from WhatsApp users.

      Signal is unlikely to be deemed a gatekeeper, so can keep their closed communication ecosystem. They can just optionally choose to support interop with WhatsApp. If they prefer, they can also have big warning signs in the UI, when their users decide to utilize that interop.

      • miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Whatever way it works, I could see people giving up certain services if they allow interoperability with the gatekeepers, because why use these alternatives then.

        But then again, the services that take privacy seriously won’t do it in the first place, so it should be a non-issue.

    • worfamerryman@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      I just don’t want to be tied to an apple device to Message people who only have iMessage. I live outside of the US but all my family, friends, and contacts are there.

      I feel locked into iOS as international texting and calls would be so expensive.

      • miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Both Apple and Google need to get their shit together on this one, put their pride aside and agree on a standard.

        • worfamerryman@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          I’m an apple user, but I really think the issue is being created by apple. They talked about doing iMessage on android and then someone else was like no we can’t we want people to be locked into their iPhone.

    • iamak@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      True. However there are certain advantages

      • WhatsApp gets only a part of your data (coz many people might be on different apps)
      • You don’t have to run WhatsApp on your device so they can’t collect that data either

      I know it’s not perfect but better than the current scenario and a step in the right direction

      • miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Since WhatsApp is proprietary, we don’t know if the users are the only ones who can decrypt their messages. I’ll always have to assume Meta can read everything, which is the most sensible data they could possibly collect.

        So that alone should be reason enough to avoid it.

        • iamak@infosec.pub
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          1 year ago

          Yes. I don’t endorse WhatsApp. What I meant is if you chat with 15 people out of which 5 use WhatsApp, only those 5 chats are potentially readable by Meta. Because those are the only chats which will get sent to Meta servers.

          So you have the benefit that the other 10 chats are not readable by Meta.

          • miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Yeah, true. And concerning your name and phone number, they probably already have that too, one way or another.

            • iamak@infosec.pub
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              1 year ago

              At this point I just assume Meta, Google and Apple have my number due to people storing the number on their devices. Amazon also might have it because people might have paid me via Amazon Pay (and given it access to contacts).

    • smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      The point is that anyone could switch at any time and we wouldn’t have to make switch all at once.

      There would be real competition.