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129 lines
6.2 KiB
129 lines
6.2 KiB
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me"><h1>Julio Biason .Me 4.3</h1></a> |
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<p class="lead">Old school dev living in a 2.0 dev world</p> |
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<h1 class="post-title">Commented Link: Giving More Time For Our Recent Update</h1> |
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2021-01-19 |
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/privacy/">#privacy</a> |
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/whatsapp/">#whatsapp</a> |
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<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/facebook/">#facebook</a> |
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<p>WhatsApp recently decided to change the way they allow people using their |
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platform, allowing Facebook to collect information. But the backlash was a bit |
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too much and now they are... erm... <a href="https://blog.whatsapp.com/giving-more-time-for-our-recent-update">giving more time for you to accept |
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it</a>. But some |
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things really don't pan out.</p> |
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<span id="continue-reading"></span> |
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<p>First of all, the next paragraphs may be the result of bad PR, but the fact is: |
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Some things don't look good.</p> |
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<p>For example, they mention that people are "confused" and that there is "a lot |
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of misinformation" floating around. But what points are people confused about? |
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What misinformation is being spread and what is real? Those two point are not |
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pointed out, so you don't know what is real and what is not.</p> |
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<p>And there isn't a single word about "change". They are not changing the wording |
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on their update to clear the confusing, they are not changing the update |
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itself. Get used to it. Accept or get out.</p> |
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<p>But, then again, that could be simply bad PR. No idea on what to do, no |
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experience in this kind of communication problem, so not a single word that |
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could give security that those changes are not what they seem.</p> |
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<p>But let me take this a bit deeper: WhatsApp is constantly reassuring that |
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end-to-end encryption will not change, even when you communicate with business. |
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The post points to their FAQ, with a link that says they are providing "more |
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options", but the FAQ itself shows that those are not options: It shows things |
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that <em>will</em> happen. If there is no selection to get out/disable these things, |
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it is no option at all.</p> |
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<p>And even if the conversation is end-to-end encrypted, there is no word about |
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metadata. Metadata is important 'cause it tells a lot without saying exactly |
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what. For example, in a end-to-end encrypted conversation, nobody can see what |
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I discussed with my (non-existent) wife, but the metadata says that our |
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location is not the same for a while (they don't capture your location, but a |
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lot can be said with your IP), there was a long discussion between us ('cause, |
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again, characters and number of messages is pure metadata, not the data itself) |
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and, for some reason, after this talk, I opened another talk with someone whose |
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Facebook profile says it is a Divorce Lawyer. But no, your data is safe.</p> |
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<p>Why this is a problem? One of the changes in this update is that "some |
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information may be shared with third-parties" and you can be sure that one of |
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those "third-parties" is Facebook -- although this is not troubling yet. But |
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imagine that I use WhatsApp to talk with my favorite vegan pizza place. Again, |
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metadata is shared between WhatsApp and Facebook, and now Facebook, collecting |
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my profile, knows that I like vegan pizza. And now there is another data point |
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on it. While this is not bad for me, it is bad for the vegan pizza place, |
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'cause I'll start getting pizza ads on my Facebook feed. This basically means |
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that business using WhatsApp business are shooting themselves in the foot.</p> |
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<p>Also, the wording in their "Shared With Facebook FAQ" (which is another link |
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away) says that business may use Facebook infrastructure to provide receipts |
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and chatting. But this could still be end-to-end encrypted, so there was no |
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change at all: Facebook would be simply a service provider for storing that |
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information. If instead of Facebook, WhatsApp decided to use AWS infrastruture, |
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there would be a change in their privacy terms?</p> |
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<p>I'm not saying that this change looks like a huge breach in our already eroded |
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privacy, but from 10.000 feet view, it looks like something is bad.</p> |
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