Ask HN: WhatsApp Alternatives?
Hi,
are there any alternative other than using Signal? Is there an OTR Encryption tool that integrates into the keyboard/clipboard on iOS/Android devices?
Even as an early adopter in most tech, including in WhatsApp, I did hope I'd never see the scale of illegal surveillance that is happening today on the entire consumer industry.
I feel nothing but powerlessness over the elimination of privacy.
WhatsApp communication is considered public in court and is credibly being monitored (source: friends at criminal investigation units and https://www.google.com/search?q=whatsapp+communication+monitoring ).
You don't need anything to hide to be criminally investigated. It could just be "dissent" to a government or a corruption case you want to blow the whistle on or any coincidental messages that in the wrong context appear in a different meaning. The state-level eaves-dropping has grown to a perverse level and a precise tool to identify key-persons. Even HN has fingerprinting to identify who said what independent of accounts.
Looking for any choices that are left or ideas on howto keep (team) communications outside of total surveillance.
Do you think privacy and encrypted communication that can't be cracked by the government should be outlawed or considered illegal?
Session - no e-mail or phone number needed. It generates a 66 digit id on new account creation.
>Even HN has fingerprinting to identify who said what independent of accounts.
What?
>WhatsApp communication is considered public in court and is credibly being monitored
I think, unless I misunderstood. Is that those records are not stored on Meta's server but could be subjected to usage in court with minimal work. Cant you have disappearing message so they self delete ?
I am also unaware of they could see my Whatsapp messages without getting me to unblock my phone as the content of the message are encrypted. But they do have some metadata. So on a threat level that depends on people's risk appetite.
I know people in US loathe Meta but generally speaking I think Whatsapp is pretty damn good.
People loathe Meta cause if they don't hit their quarterly targets for Wall St what happens? - They will sell more of your data, push more ads down your throat, charge businesses more for reach and visibility, and blame anyone who complains for not acting like more like the poster children of the Attention Economy ie Trump and Elon. Content explodes but Attention available doesn't grow therefore Meta can't grow forever. Therefore all the above tactics are the only way for that mentally bankrupt organization to survive.
Don't post online. Just live your life as locally as possible and talk to your IRL friends. There's no privacy against the state online. All your devices are made by companies that care about profit more than privacy and any service will hand over your details if asked.
While there are more private options for communicating with a small group, good luck convincing anyone else to use them. The average person gives no fucks and isn't going to bother decrypting what you send them.
Telegram?
Wasn't Pavel Durov the billionaire CEO under investigation and put into jail in France to be coerced/forced to build a backdoor into Telegram for the French Government?
He just recently came free. I don't know if there is any proof that Telegram is not backdoored by now.
Even if someone can analyse all binary releases and reverse engineer the code. It's more likely Telegram servers are backdoored and not the clients.
If you are this paranoid, you probably want to host your own solution from scratch.