[Aachen]

You think they (plan to) decrypt messages and then upload them again in plain text to a server?

Since on-device processing is neither as objectionable nor could be very large

I don't use WhatsApp myself because of who runs it and there are plenty of better options out there, so I certainly agree with the sentiment of steering clear, but this claim does seem pretty far out there

[worldsavior]

They don't plan it because they have no use for it. They only care about the metadata. When you talked to this person; your wife; at what time of day; was it at night; how long is the message; was there a product mentioned in the message; was the message about sports; etc.

[berkes]

They don't plan it, because so far, they don't have the keys to do so.

We do need to trust Meta that they really don't, to some extent, but people way smarter than me have researched the WA implementation of the Signal protocol and it seems solid. I.E: Meta appears to simply be unable to read what you chat and send. (but TBC: they do see with whom and when you do this, just not the contents).

[yonatan8070]

What prevents them from simply pushing an update that quietly uploads private keys or unencrypted messages to their servers

Presumably they use proper HTTPS, so all the data is essentially encrypted twice, if they just concatenate some packets with keys, it would be extremely difficult to detect as you'd need to decrypt HTTPS (which is possible if you can install your own certificates on a device), then dig through random message data to find a random value you don't even know.

[berkes]

At least on Android it's possible to dissect an app. You won't get the original java code, but static analysis is possible. And indeed, it's possible to capture it's network traffic and even often decrypt that traffic (with root access to the device). Now, I, or you may not research at this level, but someone looking into wether they may use WhatsApp to discuss attack plans on, say, Jemen, might find such weaknesses.

People find exploits in proprietary code, or even SaaS (where researchers cannot even access the software) every day.

People at Meta might leak this information too.

"Information wants to be free"

My point is: the risk of this becoming known is real.

[Aachen]

> What prevents them from simply pushing an update that quietly uploads private keys or unencrypted messages to their servers

Reputation

Or what's the translation of bank run but generic for any service? Leegloop in Dutch. Translator gives only nonsense. Going for the descriptive route: many people would leave because of the tarnished reputation

The trick is to have Facebook continue to believe that this reputation/trust is more valuable than reading the messages of those who stay behind, which can partially be done by having realistic alternatives for people to switch to so that there is no reason to stay when trust is broken. Which kinda means pre-emptively switching (at least to build up a decent network effect elsewhere), which is what I've chosen to and encourage anyone to also do. But I'm not a conspiracy theorist who thinks that, at the present time, they'll try to roll out such an update in secret, at least not to everyone at once (intelligence agencies might send NSLs with specific targets)

[worldsavior]

They don't have the keys, but they probably can get them.

[berkes]

That's a strong accusation.

The only way I can think of, is by pushing an update that grabs all your keys and pushes them to their servers.

Otherwise, it's pretty decent set up (if I am to believe Moxie, which I do)