Privacy in the Messenger

DROSTTE

I am concerned about the privacy of messaging apps. I use WhatsApp and Telegram because almost everyone I communicate with uses them. What can I do to protect my privacy when using these apps?

DeletedUser588

DROSTTE there's not a whole lot you can do, they're un-private by nature. Given how much malware uses both of them to spread, just don't click on untrusted links, keep exploit protections enabled, etc. It's always worth trying to get your contacts to move elsewhere, it worked with my friends and family with a bit of prodding. As a general rule, if a messaging app demands a phone number to sign up, it's not very good, with the possible exception of signal, who does it to "prevent spam"

FWIW, I think both apps you mentioned let you hide your number from other users, telegram definitely does, Whatsapp might? Never used either to be honest. But the most private option is to ditch both.

DROSTTE

DeletedUser588
Hiding your phone number is only one side of the coin. The other side is preventing personal data leaks. I don't trust Signal because they have only published half of their source code. Why? To me, that's reason enough to question its security. There are also doubts about Telegram's reliability after what happened to Durov in France. Although Telegram offers more options for hiding personal data, it won't help if someone wants to access the information. I found passport data just by knowing the user's name.

DeletedUser735

DROSTTE that's gotta be a clearly a typo in your post. Signal is fully open sourced. They didn't publish only "half", but the whole thing. It's Telegram that never open sourced their server code.

DROSTTE

DeletedUser735
Yes, I was wrong. But what about Telegram Desktop? As far as I know, its code is open source.

andrej567

first of all this about telegram

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2024/08/25/telegram-is-not-really-an-encrypted-messaging-app/

gta3

Use molly-foss which is a hardened fork of Signal and uses signals servers, also allows cross compatavilty with signal users.

Telegram & whatsapp are closed source spyware lol....

They are not encrypted and offer u no privacy.

Send somthing random on WhatsApp then go onto YouTube and what u typed appears in your recommended feed... Lol

Telegram even advertises publicly that chats are not by default private, unless you enable the private feature each and every time lol... Even then as its closed source we all know its still not private

The world has become naive, weak, thick, and subservient.

DeletedUser735

gta3 FYI, molly-foss and molly are now merged into one app.

I'd also highlight the importance of self-hosting your own mollysocket and ntfy server to get push notifications from molly while still being easy on your phone's battery life. I understand this is out of reach for most people though.

brandy078

DROSTTE

Put WA in an own profile.
Make a new account with a burner number and don't use that number anywhere else.
VPN always on.
No contact sync.
no permissions except Network
no push notifications
no background sync
no automatic media download
self destructed messages (24h)
disable read recipes, no profile picture, no info, no status ect.

Do the same with Telegram.

This reduces the amount of meta data you share with those companies.

de0u

gta3 Use molly-foss which is a hardened fork of Signal and uses signals servers, also allows cross compatavilty with signal users.

Telegram & whatsapp are closed source spyware lol....

They are not encrypted and offer u no privacy.

Oddly, the Signal Foundation says that WhatsApp is encrypted, using Signal's encryption (source). If there is a source supporting the claim that WhatsApp is not encrypted, I'm sure many people here would be interested.

gta3 Send somthing random on WhatsApp then go onto YouTube and what u typed appears in your recommended feed... Lol

"Random" and "arbitrary" do not mean the same thing. To send something random it would be necessary to use a genuine random number generator to pick the words in the topic. Typing some phrase that seems like it might very well be unpredictable is not at all the same thing, given the ability of various services to track and model behavior and guess what any given person is likely to be interested in.

If it's true that typing a truly random phrase into WhatsApp causes the information to fall into the hands of YouTube (a Meta competitor, by the way), I'm sure people here would be interested in reports from trustworthy sources of this happening.

gta3

de0u

You posted a strawman argument, I never used the word arbitrary once, let alone made any comparisons of arbitrary vs random.

If you notice a rip on your kitchen curtains, and you mention it to a friend via WhatsApp, then 60seconds later find curtain repair videos on your youTube feed... With zero prior search history of curtain repair, this is highly indicative of data sharing, and its also random enough.

Second point.
How would signal have the authority to claim WhatsApp is encrypted?

Whilst you ask me to prove my post, I ask you to prove yours.

Whatsapp is closed souce, Ill be even easier on you and instead of asking you to provide proof, can you even explain how signal can make any assertive statements what/what not WhatsApp do in there backend?

Meta is a for profit company that relies on invading peoples privacy and data scavaging, its most highly plausible that every single whatsapp chat is parsed through AI and sold to third parties for a range of uses... Such as marketting, anti terrorism, and the rest of it...

To assume otherwise would be highly naive.

gta3

DeletedUser735 thanks for your post.

Are molly default socket notifications hard on the battery?

gta3

brandy078 you sgouldnt be using telegram period, whether its in its own profile or not is irrelevant. Its spyware

brandy078

gta3 I see. But OP asked for better privacy when using WA and TG

DeletedUser609

gta3 Whilst you ask me to prove my post, I ask you to prove yours.

I don't believe de0u asked you to prove this, more just asking for a source supporting your claim. The same way @de0u supplied a source supporting there claim:

de0u the Signal Foundation says that WhatsApp is encrypted, using Signal's encryption (source)

Oggyo

DeletedUser735 I'd also highlight the importance of self-hosting your own mollysocket and ntfy server to get push notifications from molly

Hi eggy, I have a question.
Let's say I accomplished that, but my correspondent still relies on the FCM to get the push notifications.
Can this still be considered a privacy weakness?

de0u

gta3 If you notice a rip on your kitchen curtains, and you mention it to a friend via WhatsApp, then 60seconds later find curtain repair videos on your youTube feed... With zero prior search history of curtain repair, this is highly indicative of data sharing, and its also random enough.

Is that what happened?

If so, is it possible that your friend searched for a video on repairing curtains, and that you and your friend have watched a YouTube video together? Or is it possible that a voice assistant such as Alexa was listening?

Without careful experimental controls, "Information sharing" does not necessarily imply that WhatsApp isn't encrypted.

de0u

gta3 How would signal have the authority to claim WhatsApp is encrypted?

WhatsApp concealing their source code from their customers does not mean they conceal their source code from everybody! I don't work for the Signal Foundation, or for Meta, but it is quite plausible that Meta employees and Signal employees worked together on WhatsApp source code under a nondisclosure agreement. This sort of thing is routine.

Whatsapp is closed souce, Ill be even easier on you and instead of asking you to provide proof, can you even explain how signal can make any assertive statements what/what not WhatsApp do in [their] backend?

If WhatsApp is indeed encrypted end-to-end, then the privacy of WhatsApp messages mathematically doesn't depend on what WhatsApp does "in their back end". That's what end-to-end encryption means. Clearly E2EE still permits traffic analysis, meaning that WhatsApp knows who communicates with whom and when. But that has nothing to do with WhatsApp hypothetically learning the contents of messages.

gta3 Meta is a for profit company that relies on invading peoples privacy and data scavaging, its most highly plausible that every single whatsapp chat is parsed through AI and sold to third parties for a range of uses... Such as marketting, anti terrorism, and the rest of it...

To assume otherwise would be highly naive.

The forum moderators have expressed disapproval for alarmist claims without evidence. If there is evidence for a claim, that is better than an unsupported claim that some people agree with and others do not.

Eumenia

DROSTTE I don't trust Signal because they have only published half of their source code.

What do you mean?
Their clients are FOSS

DeletedUser588

DROSTTE I just don't trust signal, SimpleX Chat is better. Post quantum cryptography, no phone number requirement or user IDs, not even random ones, not in America, etc. The phone number requirement is inexcusable to be honest, there's other ways to "prevent spam" Also, with their "half open source" are you referring to server side code being closed?