SUMMARY
- The EU has identified WhatsApp as a gatekeeper in the messaging industry and has given it a few months to enable interoperability with other apps.
- The EU’s Digital Markets Act aims to promote fair competition and give consumers more options for alternative services.
- WhatsApp has already begun working on interoperability with other apps, potentially allowing smaller players like Signal to compete more fairly.
Signal will soon be your one stop solution for all your chat apps
Fixed that for you.
* Except SMS
especially SMS
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Why is this being presented as “whatsapp will be the one and only” instead of “whatsapp won’t be the only option”? The DMA will users to install nearly any chat app and chat with users from another chat app.
Where are you getting “the one and only” from? Are you misinterpreting “one-stop solution”?
What are you interpreting “one-stop solution” as?
The fact that iMessage got the exemptions underpins the entire act. I would any day switch to Signal, if there is 1:1 interoperability b/w the platforms.
@TheMadnessKing @floppy in Europe for most people iMessage is just the SMS app. Even though it pisses me off that Apple got away with it, having WhatsApp to comply with this is just huge. Everyone here uses WhatsApp, and now I won’t be forced to leave Signal anymore.
iMessage is not considered a gatekeeper in Europe because pretty much nobody uses it. That’s why it’s extempted.
Here people use it as a better SMS. Group chats are all on Discord for my generation and the older generations primarily use FB messenger I believe.
Apple just claimed an exception. It’s still up to the EU to determine whether it is actually exempt or not.
I’m sure I read that they got the exemption approved.
It’s because there’s not enough people in the EU actually using it.
Nobody here uses it though
Yes. Thankfully.
It’s really on American regulators to hold American companies accountable if they abuse their dominant position in the American market to the detriment of American consumers.
They got a exception because npbody uses that insecure garbage here, everyone uses Whatsapp tho so this makes a lot of sense!
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I can’t wait for signal/session/simplex to be whatsapp compatible, but I’m not sure they can provided the e2ee gurantees since whatsapp is closed source.
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At least that’s what they said it uses.
I fear that Signal won’t implement cross compatibility for WhatsApp since they already said that they are not a fan of potentially giving up E2EE to get it to work. And I can understand that but I still really would like to have the cross compatibility.
I hope Signal doesn’t if it won’t be E2EE. I like knowing that if it’s in Signal, it’s E2EE, and being able to tell less technically sophisticated people to whom I recommend Signal that everything in it is secure against eavesdropping.
Beeper will do it, if you self host, it shouldn’t be terrible
Signal and also lots of other privacy focused messenger-services (threema e.g.) already said the will not implement this forced interoperability since it will lower their already high standards regarding their users privacy. Sad but i guess it makes sense :(
So users of those apps will have to install the even less secure apps to converse with “normies”. Great move.
I’m not sure they can provided the e2ee gurantees since whatsapp is closed source.
Uh, news flash: Signal and Meta are business partners and WhatsApp (just as Facebook Messenger) uses Signal’s encryption:
The ability to sell proprietary versions of Signal libraries is literally the reason for Signal’s Contributor License Agreement: https://signal.org/cla/
it’s still closed source, so we can’t make guarantees about WhatsApp conversation participants.
so we can’t make guarantees about WhatsApp conversation participants.
“We” can’t but Signal, who work on WhatApp’s source code, can: https://signal.org/blog/there-is-no-whatsapp-backdoor/
tldr: When contacts have verified each other, communication is secure.
If you think that Signal can’t be trusted, you should not use their client either.
signal may have given a fully vetted and correct implementation to whatsapp, but because its closed source we don’t know if it has changed, or if its really implemented on all conversations.
It changes the trust model of conversation participants.
To answer your query, if signal was closed source, I wouldn’t trust it either.
signal may have given a fully vetted and correct implementation to whatsapp
They were not “given” it. They are literally the contractor who worked on that: “Over the past year, we’ve been progressively rolling out Signal Protocol support for all WhatsApp communication across all WhatsApp clients.” –https://signal.org/blog/whatsapp-complete/
but because its closed source we don’t know if it has changed, or if its really implemented on all conversations.
I’m not an encryption developer. I can’t vet this for Signal’s own app either.
…and because its closed source, community cryptography developers and researchers can’t vet it for you either. That is the core issue, its not about trust.
It’s about capabilities that inform the threat model, and the exposure model.
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Please keep it civil.
Copy that, ghost rider. That’s my bad.
You could be right for all I know, but only assholes begin their statements by saying “news flash”.
The self-proclaimed rapist is really one to judge…
I assume it’s a reference to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
I assume it’s a reference to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
So he calls himself a rapist and others “assholes” just for fun? Phew, I’m so relieved. I really thought he violated rule 9 (No offensive or unhelpful content) just for a second…
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Ever heard of TV?
Signal interoperability
I support it but this doesn’t sound legit
Odd way to spell Matrix.
Not a fucking chance!
It’s weird. With every single app having a DM feature years before Whatsapp was even invented, with every single cell phone having email and SMS capabilities, and with a bunch of E2E encrypted apps already in service, why would I want to go back to Facebook’s ecosystem in 2023?
Whatsapp worked on iPhone, Android, Blackberry and even some old ass java phones
They dominated the market in most countries or were close second to Messenger.
Now they keep growing and it doesn’t give any chance to smaller better apps, this law makes it possible for you to use only signal but also chat to people that only use Whatsapp
When every single person you know uses Whatsapp, you have to use it too. That’s what this law is about. So you can use other apps even if everyone else uses whatsapp
Eww no get that trash outta here
And this is where I wonder, how long until Matrix servers preemptively defederate from WhatsApp?
Probably won’t. WhatsApp is already huge. Threads was a new platform with artificially inflated user numbers.
Why though? To avoid users leaving Signal for Whatsapp? if you need to chat with someone through matrix into whatsapp, right now you laready have whatsapp installed. I prefer to talk to whatsapp users from a more secure app, thanks.
Nice try, WhatsApp.
I setup my own matrix instance and ran a few bridges on it, so I don’t need WhatsApp thanks
This is the way
Bridges?
You can set up bridges to link to your other messengers. Then you will only need Matrix to be able to reply to everyone.
How
But you still need an account and the bridge does not use official API.
Does anyone know what level of interoperability is required? Like basic text, pictures, emoji… or every feature including things like location sharing?
Full Unicode text and images is likely all we’ll get, but honestly I never understood the appeal of all the crap they stuff into (say) iMessage.
I don’t know iMessage, but some of the more advanced features in WhatsApp/Messenger are great. I use shared location almost daily, voice messages are great too.
Good question. Because it could end up like the interoperability of MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger of the early 2000’s. It was crap.
I have a whatsapp because my dad wanted to be able to call me without international long distance fees. He’s called once and I get endless amounts of spam. I’ll be seeing him in a couple of weeks, and I can hopefully switch him to LINE (what everyone uses here) and get rid of this app for all and get the last cancer of Meta out of my personal life.
LINE is the worst for spam though.
Really? I’ve gotten almost no spam in the last decade or so I’ve been using it. The one time I did, I think the account had been hacked.
Back at you with whatsapp too. I still dislike it but not because it generates spam, at all. Do you mean that you get messaged by spammers though whatsapp? I only use it to chat with family memebers and I have no issues with notifications or anything. Maybe I have blocked some notifications but you can do it too.
Yeah, I get tons of random messages from people I don’t know. A couple are recruiters who are finding my number on my CV, but most are just “hi sweety, do you have time to talk?” from random numbers all over the world.
Huh, that means that your phone number was sold to call centers. There’s a thing called the robison list in europe, idk if it works worldwide, where if you put your phone number in that list call centers can’t legally call you. I’ve recieved zero spam since I put my number in that list, but it seems surprising that recruiters are contacting you through Whatsapp instead of calling you, emailing you or just sending you a message through LinkedIn, that’s seems excessively aggressive.
Damn, I don’t really have a solution besides marking them all as spam, but new numbers will keep coming so idk if there is a good solution, sadly. Just a note though, if you are receiving that much spam through whatsapp is noe because it’s whatsapp specifically, it’s because it’s the most used app in europe and spammers try to contact numbers from their list though the common apps by default.
WhatsApp is fundamentally bad and anti-consumer because it is proprietary. When people are not allowed to understand, change and redistribute the source code, the people will ALWAYS be milked and abused in some way. Trust me. LINE is also closed source and unfree, so it would only be a matter of time until that company fucks you up and you want to switch to another messenger. The most popular open source/ free messenger would be Signal. Conceptually the most promising one in my opinion is SimpleX Chat, if you want to be a bit more adventurous
No one I know is going to change to those. LINE also has other business stuff built in for interacting with companies (customer service for my massage place, my dentist, etc.) In an ideal world, sure, but it isn’t going to happen.
I have a similar issue but I am able to use SMS for those few people, most of them are relatively easy to convince of Singla in my experience, it’s as easy as it gets, basically whatsapp in secure!
Fuck that, fuck them they belong in the digital bin. I don’t want WhatsApp to be able to connect to Signal or anything else. Sounds like a gigantic security risk.
Yeah, fuuuuuck that. I use Signal for a reason.
Yeah and I’m kinda liking the “either use signal or leave me the fuck alone” part of it.
“I don’t want these Signal encrypted Matrix protocol messages on my Signal encrypted Matrix protocol messaging app, it’s a gigantic security risk”
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WhatsApp and Signal use the same Signal developed protocol for E2EE
And yet one of them is from Facebook and the other one is not…
This is such a silly take. If you will talk to signal users, you won’t interact with this tech. If you want to talk to whatsapp users, right now yo need to have the app which is much worse!
