The news first came in 2024, but it’s been very quiet since.
I’ve been waiting this whole time to jettison WhatsApp from my phone.
Is it available only in some parts of the world? If so can I spoof it?
We know that adversarial interoperability works, so why have we not been able to make this work?
All else failing, are there any unofficial WhatsApp clients I can use to preserve my privacy?
“I think the spirit makes a lot of sense. But of course Signal can’t interoperate with another messaging platform, without them raising their privacy bar significantly,” even ones like WhatsApp that support end-to-end encryption and already partly utilize the protocol. “Because we don’t just encrypt the contents of messages using the Signal protocol. We encrypt metadata, we encrypt your profile name, your profile photo, who’s in your contact list, who you talk to, when you talk to them. That would need to be the level of privacy and security agreed across the board with anyone we interoperated with before we could consent to interoperate.”
-Meredith Whittaker (Signal President)
So no interoperability in the near future for Signal.
There’s some confusion because of the reference to “Signal protocol”. This refers to the key exchange and encryption protocol originally developed for Signal and adopted by WhatsApp, iMessage, and others.
This is a means of establishing a secure end-to-end encrypted conversation, not a federated protocol for different messaging networks to interoperate. WhatsApp announced that Signal protocol or a compatible E2EE implementation is one of their requirements to allow third parties to interoperate.
Signal has signaled its intent not to interoperate with WhatsApp or anything else several times over the years for both technical and security reasons.
birdychat and haiket, wtf are those
yeah exactly
seems like malicious compliance to me yeah, we are open to different messengers - picks 2 that have 5 users between them.
While I have no doubt Meta is doing the absolute minimum it can to comply, they’re not allowed to pick and choose arbitrarily. They can have technical and security requirements, but we’re not hearing from major players about how WhatsApp is refusing them access when they’ve asked.
I’m inclined to think most of them either don’t want to (Signal doesn’t) or aren’t in a position to make it work.
would love to see matrix tbh but i dunno if thats feasible
i was wondering the same thing… im in the eu and recently updated whatsapp and it says you can chat using different “third party apps” i saw that there are just 2 available atm , but are in beta or something and ask you for the email…
It was promised that it will never happen. Don’t know why you thought unrealistic thingd
…are there any unofficial WhatsApp clients I can use to preserve my privacy?
Using WhatsApp and ‘preserve privacy’ is a contradiction. Accept no privacy or stop using any kind of Metas services and networks
I recently saw an app that has one-to-one chat interoperability. As far as I remember the EU law has a transition phase where first there has to be a way for one-to-one chats and later for group chats. But the group chat deadline is still not reached
Who ever promised that? Just because both use Axolotl/Double Ratchet? hat is far from enough. Not to mention that neither Meta nor Signal Messaging have any economic incentive to do it…
According to the EU Digital markets act, the gatekeepers (major networks) must propose means to interoperate with the smaller networks.
chuckle Oh noes!
Whoever promised that?
Updated the description to clarify.
The economic incentive from Signals point of view is that it allows them to steal users. Its a lot easier to switch if you don’t have to drag 100% of people you know off a platform to remove their app.
Look up adversarial interoperability if you’re interested. It’s how Facebook got big in the first place.
As for Meta, the only thing they would gain is less scrutiny from regulators as Gatekeepers.
Thanks for the clarification.
Well, I’d expect Meta to drag their feet as much as they can, tbh. So: Years and as many “regrettable” technical hiccups and UX inconveniences as they can get away with without having to pay too stiff a fine. Same as always.
I am aware of adverserial interoperability, but, frankly, it’s one of those ideas that make me chuckle benevolently. I don’t see much practical merit in it. As for Facebook getting big that way in the first place: I strongly disagree. They got big by being early, good enough to capture the zeitgeist, and then being as anticompetitve as they could. Just like Microsoft before them, for example.
