Whistleblowers have revealed that Meta may have the ability to read your personal WhatsApp conversations, despite the app reminding you at the beginning of every new conversation that your chats are completely private.

According to a class action lawsuit:

Although backdoor access is mainly used to “review messages flagged for fraud” or policy-violating conduct, the case says, Meta, WhatsApp and Accenture employees nevertheless have “broad access to users’ messages.”

WhatsApp has denied these claims on X, calling them categorically false and "absurd".

I have always doubted WhatsApp's claims to be fully end-to-end encrypted (E2EE), especially considering that billions of people use it, including protestors, political dissidents, and "unvaccinated extremists".

The Evolution of Private Communication

Decades ago we used to talk to each other in person, under the impression that our conversations were private, so long as our neighbor wasn't eavesdropping on us, and the CIA had not planted listening devices in our home.

These days however, most of our communication has moved into the digital realm, where we have to trust tech companies to keep our personal conversations private.

Some applications claim your messages are kept private, while others make no such claims.

Social Media DMs vs. WhatsApp

For example, if you direct message (DM) your friends on a social media platform like Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, those messages are stored in such a way that the company can read them. Not only could a rogue employee access them, but if a government served a subpoena, they would have to hand the messages over.

WhatsApp, on the other hand, implemented the Signal protocol in 2016 and has claimed to be fully end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) ever since. That means the plain text messages you write on your phone are scrambled, and then unscrambled on the recipient's phone. If true, no man-in-the-middle would be able to read your messages - not even Meta.

The problem is, we don't know if Meta is being honest with us, because the WhatsApp source code is closed-source, meaning that security researchers cannot verify their privacy claims. We simply have to trust that the encryption has been implemented properly, and that no back doors have been built into the app.

Popular Alternative Messengers

Elon Musk and Pavel Durov took the opportunity to throw shade at WhatsApp and promote their own messengers - namely XChat and Telegram.

The main problem with XChat is that its source code has yet to be released, so it cannot be trusted either, at least for the time being.

Meanwhile, conversations on Telegram are not E2EE by default. You have to enable a "Secret Chat" manually.

Based on Pavel's tweet, it sounds like Telegram is simply less willing to handover their user chat sessions compared to Meta. However, they certainly have the ability to do so.

The Most Private Options

If the WhatsApp backdoor turns out to be true, and both XChat and Telegram are flawed, what other options do we have?

Quite a few X users recommended Signal messenger as the better option. Signal's code is open-source, and they support reproducible builds, so you can verify that the binary blog you're installing matches the actual source code.

The main problem with Signal is convincing all your friends, family, and acquaintances to use it, especially when you're the only person they know who has installed it. However, those who truly care about privacy should consider making the leap.

And if you really want to take your privacy to the next level, consider using a messaging app called Session. In addition to being open-source, Session servers are community-owned and decentralized, making the entire protocol more transparent, and harder to shut down.

Until next time...

Meta is becoming less and less trustworthy as the years go by. For any communication that you would prefer to keep private, use a fully open-source private messenger like Signal or Session, while always keeping in mind that perfect privacy doesn't exist.

If you learned something new from this article, be sure to check out my other posts on crypto and finance here on @brennanhm/how-to-monetize-your-content-on-the-hive-blockchain" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the Hive blockchain. You can also follow me on X or InLeo for more frequent updates.

Sources

Zuckerberg Meme

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