
Facebook to integrate the infrastructure for WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger - tysone
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/technology/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-messenger.html
======
wyldfire
> Mr. Zuckerberg has also ordered all of the apps to incorporate end-to-end
> encryption, the people said, a significant step that protects messages from
> being viewed by anyone except the participants in the conversation.

I don't blame NYT for getting this wrong wrt WhatsApp but it bears repeating:
if you let someone else broker the key exchange, you trust them implicitly.
That is to say that IMO this is not truly trustworthy "end to end encryption".
To add insult to injury, WhatsApp permits rekeying to take place without any
indication to the conversation's participants [in the default settings].

~~~
bouncing
> if you let someone else broker the key exchange, you trust them implicitly.

Sort of.

Yes, they could serve you a MITM key, but it would be easily discoverable when
you compare security codes in the client. And since the client is widely
distributed on major app stores, it would be very risky to ship a compromised
client.

Ultimately key exchange is a hard problem to solve. Notice that Signal doesn't
do anything that much different; Signal does the key exchange and unless you
verify each user's key offline, you have to trust it. Both WhatsApp and Signal
have an option to display a notice when keys change, but Signal's is on by
default.

Overall it's still pretty damn good. WhatsApp is perhaps the only major form
of consumer communication where, by default and with no opt-out, every single
chat really is fully encrypted using a widely respected protocol (libsignal).
That's not nothing.

~~~
feanaro
> Notice that Signal doesn't do anything that much different; Signal does the
> key exchange and unless you verify each user's key offline, you have to
> trust it.

Let's not forget Signal is FOSS and has reproducible builds
([https://signal.org/blog/reproducible-
android/](https://signal.org/blog/reproducible-android/)). This makes it far
easier to trust its verification code.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
Yes, signal is better than FB or sms.. But the whole requiring phone number
puts a nail in it on my end.

So Signal can learn who talks with whom via requests going through their LDAP-
like server. They can get an idea how long calls are, and if it was a vid or
audio call. They know the times of communication.

You know, they can see the _metadata_. When's the last time we had problems
with metadata? The POTS network? Yep.

And you're indeed right the _client_ has reproducible builds. But the server
side certainly doesn't. And we have no way to ascertain that.

~~~
bronco21016
Everytime Signal is brought up someone just has to chime in saying ‘we must
abandanon Signal at all costs because metadata’. The metadata limitation is
well known and if metadata interception is a problem for your threat model
there are steps to obscure your identity or you should use a different tool.
For the 99% of other cases where I just don’t want anyone snooping on my
conversation with friends and family but don’t care that people know I’m
obviously conversing with my friends and family Signal is great. Let’s not
throw Signal out just because the metadata is still there.

~~~
e12e
If metadata is good enough to drone strike weddings, it's probably good enough
to throw you in a concentration camp too. And since data never dies, it might
be enough to throw your grand kids in concentration camps.

Now, protecting everyone's meta data is hard (probably impossible), and I
don't mean to be defeatist - but "it's just metadata" doesn't sit well in a
post Snowden world. We _know_ all large intelligence agencies hoover up this
stuff.

And we also know that agencies are made up of people, and some people abuse
their access.

~~~
bronco21016
I certainly don’t mean to discount the importance of metadata. I specifically
mentioned ensuring Signal fits your threat model.

To suggest that metadata of communication over Signal between my spouse and I
will be used against my grand kids one day is a bit absurd though. Of course
there’s tons of metadata connecting my spouse and I. It would be more
suspicious if there wasn’t.

~~~
e12e
Spouse, "family" and friends are different goalposts. Mapping friends and
family is AFAIK a key part of who gets bombed by the cia. Sure, if your spouse
is found to be an "enemy of the state" under a new totalitarian government -
your immediate family will have problems.

If a friend turns out to be union organizer, you might be banned from jobs, if
the government decides to collude with employers (again).

------
tejaswiy
Oh man ignoring the privacy implications of this, all the "product" people at
Facebook are going to destroy WhatsApp as we know and love. It is going to
become a giant monstrosity with a 500MB binary size, lag, whole bunch of
tracking code and super slow servers. It has begun to a certain extent already
and it's only going get worse.

I assume they think that the network effect is going to lock users into
WhatsApp but the moment it becomes too painful to run on a 100$ Android phone
with 1GB of RAM, it will inevitably die. Sure it's not going to be
instantaneous but I'm a 100% sure that all the PMs that run Facebook Messenger
are itching to get their hands on WhatsApp.

I understand these changes are only on the server side, but I imagine the
client side is not too far away. Some client changes are inevitable because
I'm pretty sure they'll build a "unified" API for all these apps and it's is
going to contain a whole bunch of messenger service code (because look at all
those messenger features that noone cares about, surely we can't just drop
what a whole org has been working on for two years)

~~~
Stubb
You don't trust Zuckerberg to keep your private messages private? Even if that
somehow happens, he'll be selling your messaging network info to everyone with
two nickels to rub together.

No thanks. Delete Messenger/WhatsApp and move everything onto other services.

~~~
malloreon
you have to delete instagram too

~~~
reitanqild
Nobody ever accused me of being a Facebook shill, I'm happy to say I've helped
a number of people off WhatsApp after Facebook bought them.

But let's keep this serious: Instagram isn't a tool for secure messaging. It
is a tool to publish images, mostly public images.

A person might very well decide to move sensitive communication off Instagram
and continue to post their cat videos on Instagram.

A valid reason for not using Instagram however is to lead by example and
weaken the network effect of Facebook.

Facebook is already in panic because users are leaving the platform so IMO now
is a good time to test out alternative solutions :-)

~~~
Stubb
This is precisely while I'm on instagram: There's no pretense of anything
being private. It's like the best parts of Facebook (cool pictures/info from
people who interest me) without the bullshit (TDS-fueled ramblings).

I'll be out of there as soon as a federated alternative pops up and gets the
least bit of traction.

------
cleansy
I wonder what the EU commission will say to that. They only agreed to the
WhatsApp takeover because FB stated that they would not do exactly what Zuck
has in mind.

~~~
grahamel
FB have already been fined over that "When Facebook took over the WhatsApp
messaging service in 2014, it told the [EU] commission it would not be able to
match user accounts on both platforms, but went on to do exactly that."
[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/18/facebook-
fi...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/18/facebook-fined-eu-
whatsapp-european-commission)

~~~
johnnyfaehell
Doing this after they're already talking about forcing them to sell WhatsApp
is a bold move.

~~~
mechazawa
You can't sell the platform if it's heavily integrated. Whoever buys it will
just have to rewrite it from scratch then.

~~~
tivert
> You can't sell the platform if it's heavily integrated. Whoever buys it will
> just have to rewrite it from scratch then.

Not necessarily. My understanding is WhatsApp basically uses the Signal
protocol right now, Signal itself is open source, so I assume an acquirer
could just stand up some new Signal infrastructure and get 80%+ of WhatsApp
functionality without much redevelopment.

~~~
stingraycharles
Not if they integrate the messaging infrastructures as described in the
article...

~~~
tivert
> Not if they integrate the messaging infrastructures as described in the
> article...

WhatsApp is a phone app. Even if Facebook heavily integrates the messaging
infrastructures, the problem an acquirer has is _porting the existing users
over to a new messaging infrastructure_. Signal-based infrastructure is
(relatively) turn key, most of the software is already developed, deployed,
and tested. After you have that, the main thing you have to do is push a new
version of the app out to all the different app stores that uses your new
infrastructure. Bam, you're done.

I am simplifying certain things (there'd definitely be a somewhat complex
transition period where your new app would have to support both
infrastructures), but my main point is that this integration is not as big of
a barrier to re-separation as it may seem.

~~~
johnnyfaehell
> the problem an acquirer has is porting the existing users over to a new
> messaging infrastructure.

If you're selling it, it would be your job to port it. This wouldn't be the
purchaser's job, it would be Facebook's job. It would be like expecting
someone to dismantle a bed your selling on eBay. No one in their right mind
would agree to dismantle it for you unless you were giving it away.

------
CivilianZero
I'm going to start this comment by saying that I don't agree with or approve
of most of/anything Facebook has been doing. Security and Privacy are very
important to me when it comes to the internet. I don't have a Facebook
account.

So now I'd like to point out that the article has a couple mistakes. You don't
actually need to provide anything but a phone number to use Facebook
Messenger, but not many people know this, it seems. Related to this is a lot
of hand-wringing about "oh no this will mean Facebook is watching us in all
these apps now". Well, I'll address this in a second. I want to talk about
this quote in the article:

"Matching Facebook and Instagram users to their WhatsApp handles could give
pause to those who prefer keeping their use of each app compartmentalized."

This is already impossible. WhatsApp and Instagram collect information on you
whether you have a Facebook account and whether or not you are logged in if
you do have one. They know who are you are (this is the reason why I don't
really care how encrypted WhatsApp is, I'm not going to use it). So if this
really bothers people, well, I've got some bad news.

------
rajeshmr
> "a Facebook user could send an encrypted message to someone who has only a
> WhatsApp account, for example. Currently, that isn’t possible because the
> apps are separate."

This freaks me out, as i have deliberately chosen to stay away from facebook
since the early days! I somehow felt repelled by the idea of facebook back
then, now its trying to hunt me down! Oops!

I have been thinking of quitting Whatsapp since facebook acquired it, but
continued using it since almost everyone i frequently communicate with does so
on Whatsapp.

Maybe it's time to quit whatsapp before this integration happens! Or am i just
freaking out ? :D

~~~
rchaud
I don't think you're wrong. The point of this integration is to start
connecting Whatsapp's giant database of phone numbers with Facebook
Messenger/IG accounts. At this time, it's still possible to be anonymous on
Whatsapp, but that ends once this project is completed.

Been trying to get friends and family to switch to Signal since early 2017
with no luck.

~~~
_wmd
You're only as anonymous as the contact records in all the phones you're
communicating with, i.e. not at all. The only winning move is not to play

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/26/how-to-stop-your-phone-
from-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/26/how-to-stop-your-phone-from-
uploading-your-contacts-to-facebook.html)

~~~
14
This is a sour point for me. It bugs me that other people can reveal
information about me and there is little I can do. I actually stopped entering
contacts into my phone because of this. Or I put false names for ones I man
need to label. I recognise my contacts by their phone number. I doubt my part
is overly effective because others likely don't do this but it is my way of
saying screw off. I hope one day legislation will regulate these companies and
what they share about us. I thought Facebook promised it would not suck up the
whatsapp data how can they integrate without all that data? Reminds me of a
child. Was told no so going to just do it anyways and see if there is a
punishment after. I hope some regulatory body sinks Facebook over this idea.

~~~
_wmd
It's almost entirely ineffective. Each phone book upload probably nets them
something like ~100 contacts, multiply that by 1.74 billion and the war is
entirely lost. A bit like how self-driving cars may shortly redefine the
meaning of 'public space'.

~~~
rajeshmr
May I know why you deleted your reply ? Should I also be careful around here ?
:)

~~~
_wmd
Self preservation :) I didn't want to get drawn into a thread about some topic
I shouldn't be paying attention to just now!

~~~
rajeshmr
Ha ha, true! :) but i felt your point was good, there is an upside to the fact
we are acknowledging the state of affairs as it is.

------
JumpCrisscross
At least on the East Coast, there is a growing groundswell for breaking up
Facebook. I don't think we'll see it break until after 2020. But if I'm seeing
it, Zuckerberg is seeing it. I suspect one reason for integrating
infrastructure is to make it more difficult to unwind these companies in the
years to come.

------
krn
It makes a lot of sense from the technical point of view.

Essentially, one could share a single table of "users" between Facebook,
Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Because the accounts can be easily identified and connected by email addresses
and phone numbers, which don't change that often.

This way, a "Facebook Account" could become like a "Google Account", but for
social media.

This is exactly how Google integrated YouTube.

It's bad for privacy, but good for everything else.

~~~
octorian
It would actually make product development a lot harder. You have three end-
user apps developed by different teams, supporting different content, wrapped
in different structures. Managing the differences when sending messages from
one to another is probably going to result in very weird and inconsistent user
experiences, especially in the shorter term.

Also, because of E2E encryption, the server infrastructure really cannot do
the sort of content translation necessary to make things seamless.

~~~
krn
I think the front-ends would remain completely separate, and the back-ends
would be namespaced by a platform.

For instance: facebook.users, facebook.ads, facebook.feed, facebook.messenger,
facebook.instagram, facebook.whatsapp.

This way, users and ads would be shared across all Facebook's platforms, which
is, I believe, the main reason for the entire integration.

------
flycaliguy
I have a feeling that they will live up to their encryption promise and this
will actually provide them with a long term messaging service that can provide
some stability for their company. The messages themselves are likely not
valuable enough to creep into compared to the unified metadata that all this
messaging can bring in.

~~~
wtmt
I have just the opposite feeling. Facebook is going to remove end to end
encryption as the default from WhatsApp and turn it into something like
Messenger or Telegram, where chats are by default not end to end encrypted,
and the user has to explicitly choose it. There'd be some backlash in the
press. But most users won't bother about it, just like they don't bother about
all the Facebook scandals to move off the platform or care enough to look for
better privacy elsewhere.

What's more, Facebook can, and will, paint this as something it's doing in
order to monitor content and handle fake news, earning brownie points from
various governments who'd be eager to tap into this new source for
surveillance.

------
simias
I'm not sure I understand the motivation. Seems like they don't have much to
gain and they do have a lot to lose.

While (anecdotally) Facebook doesn't appear to be very hype with the youth
today, Instagram and WhatsApp still appear to be quite popular. In a weird way
Facebook is both the mainstream choice _and_ the underdog, that's a good
position to be in IMO.

Beyond that what does it mean for people like me who use WhatsApp but do not
have a Facebook account? Is the plan to force people like me to create a
Facebook profile?

~~~
flycaliguy
The article is pretty clear about your question. This is just going to provide
cross platform messaging between all current and future apps.

~~~
simias
But how can they hope to do that without some form of unified account?

~~~
rjmunro
They /could/ do it quite easily. I can email people who have different kinds
of email account with no problem. The Jabber / XMPP protocol was designed to
link messaging systems in this way.

While it would be great if they moved to a pure Jabber federation model or
similar, I very much doubt they will do that, however, unless someone like the
EU can get their act together and force them to do it.

------
bad_user
I like WhatsApp but it seems that Zuckerberg is determined to destroy it.

At least I now have an incentive to move to Signal and convince my friends to
do so, hopefully, or otherwise I’ll be alone. Well, I can always be reached by
SMS or email.

~~~
justaguyhere
I thought Whatsapp use is great in the U.S., but I realized how big it is
outside the U.S. when I saw it firsthand. It is insane, there are people who
use it to run their entire business/livelihood.

I really hope it stays out of Zuck's "vision" but it likely won't, considering
the amount of money he paid for it

~~~
calvinbhai
As an immigrant from India in the US, when FB bought WhatsApp, I still
remember the sense of surprise/wonder among my american freinds/colleagues as
to why Whatsapp was worth so much. The kind of traction Whatsapp has, even now
in India, is something no bay area startup can even dream of achieving. Every
family member, remotely related relatives, every single classmate of mine
since childhood, everyone has whatsapp, and almost everyone uses it everyday.

as someone who has no FB apps on phone other than whatsapp, I hope/wish this
move means someone from messenger/insta can send message to Whatsapp account
and vice versa. Nothing more than that.

FB has done a good job in keeping Whatsapp true to it's core features (except
the status/stories debacle). Once it's whatsapp payments / business messaging
picks up, there's no looking back for FB even if it's core FB web platform
goes to zero, Whatsapp + Messenger + Instagram will be a force to reckon with.

------
stevehawk
As a person that doesn't have Facebook or Instagram accounts and minimal
desire to be a part of that product line, I see myself abandoning Whatsapp.
Only used it because of myself and family/friends I'm the only Android user to
begin with. Guess I'm going back to iPhones in the next iteration.

 _ninja edit_ I was already debating going back to iPhone to begin with. I
feel like this just cements it as my friends and I will give up Whatsapp for
group iMessage

~~~
technofiend
I deleted whatsapp after their purchase by facebook just to remain outside of
the Zuckerverse. Signal allegedly offers a group chat feature, but getting 20
of your closest iphone-using friends to install signal rather than use
iMessage seems unlikely.

------
godelmachine
I wonder what platform will he use for this? Like what framework?

If anyone has any idea, please share.

Edit -> I don’t understand why the heck are honest technical questions
downvoted!! It’s not like I would have found a ready answer for my question
with a simple Google search. If a question does not interest you, at least
please don’t downvote it! Some dumb people are courageous enough to ask
questions.

~~~
Tistel
Whats app is made with Erlang:

[http://highscalability.com/blog/2014/2/26/the-whatsapp-
archi...](http://highscalability.com/blog/2014/2/26/the-whatsapp-architecture-
facebook-bought-for-19-billion.html)

the article (and others) have crazy stories about scale in WhatsApp (70
million messages a second (from a few years ago)).

Erlang (and Elixir) are perfect for this scale and high reliability challenge.
But, its corporate decision, so it might wind up being rewritten in some
idiotic language. Or, more likely, it will be a hodgepodge of micro services
written in different languages and glued together with HAProxie (or whatever).

------
nunez
> The move, described by four people involved in the effort, requires
> thousands of Facebook employees to reconfigure how WhatsApp, Instagram and
> Facebook Messenger function at their most basic levels. While all three
> services will continue operating as stand-alone apps, their underlying
> messaging infrastructure will be unified, the people said. Facebook is still
> in the early stages of the work and plans to complete it by the end of this
> year or in early 2020, they said.

Thank god. If they collapsed WhatsApp into Facebook Messenger, I would quit
WhatsApp.

------
nindalf
Some folks in this thread are convinced that end-to-end encryption is going
away when the article says the exact opposite.

~~~
handzbagz
Unless they radically change how Facebook messenger works I don't see how it
could even be called end-to-end encryption. For it to work how it does now
(online and independently through the app) they would have to hold the
encryption keys.

They would have to instead tie Facebook messenger to a phone like Whatsapp
does and use a web app to send messages directly from the device instead. I
don't see how else it could be done and still be called end-to-end encryption.

~~~
nindalf
> Unless they radically change

And according to the article, this radical change is coming. Why is that so
hard to believe?

~~~
throwawaylolx
Because there are no details beyond vague promises, and it entails serious
restructuring and UX trade-offs that may affect revenue. At the moment,
skepticism makes much more sense.

~~~
nindalf
Just to be clear, do you think that the NYT is mistaken, or that Facebook has
committed to something that is too difficult to execute due to technical and
revenue concerns?

~~~
throwawaylolx
I don't think they committed to anything. It's just vague promises that can be
reinterpreted in many ways, most of which can compromise trustworthy e2e
encryption while also implementing some form of loophole-ridden e2e
encryption.

Yeah, WhatsApp is e2e encrypted by default, but it also automatically backs up
all your chat history encrypted using a WhatsApp-owned private key. Sure, you
can opt-out of backups, but will your peers do as well? Without a clear spec,
I think it's perfectly reasonable to be very skeptical of what will be the
final product of this operation.

~~~
nindalf
> just vague promises

Now I know you didn't read the article. There were no promises made because
this was based on conversations with employees, not a press release.

------
delhanty
>To add insult to injury, WhatsApp permits rekeying to take place without any
indication to the conversation's participants [in the default settings].

Agreed.

A nice Twitter thread [0] by Mustafa Al-Bassam back at the end of November on
how that might be exploited by GCHQ:

>Ian Levy of GCHQ has released an essay on how law enforcement should get
access to end-to-end encrypted communications. Here is the critical bit to pay
attention to. They're proposing to exploit the fact that users don't verify
each other's public keys, and inject bad keys.

Then this [1] later in the same thread by Twitter @inag_fc:

>This is a coordinated attack by 5 eyes. They slipped it through AU parliament
in the week, presumably as some horse trading because there was practically no
debate nor warning, beyond the normal straw man proposals.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/musalbas/status/1068179464197156864](https://twitter.com/musalbas/status/1068179464197156864)

[1]
[https://twitter.com/iang_fc/status/1071373264646225920](https://twitter.com/iang_fc/status/1071373264646225920)

------
skohan
I wonder how people will feel about this. I always thought that to some
extent, people use different social networks to segment their interactions.
I.e. will this make it feel like my mom is on Instagram now?

~~~
CamelCaseName
The comments here are rather bleak, but for me, this is fantastic.

My family is all on WhatsApp, but my friends and colleagues are on Messenger
and SMS.

Previously, I would only ever use Messenger, checking SMS and WhatsApp once a
month at best.

A while ago, SMS got integrated to Messenger, I started staying in touch with
people who only use SMS.

Now that they're adding WhatsApp, I literally don't know a single person I
can't reach from Messenger/Gmail.

I love it, and I hope things go smoothly.

~~~
sfilargi
You love it that all your communication is controlled by only a single for
profit company?

I wonder how you will feel the day FB decided to ban you for whatever rule
their algorithm would decide you violated.

------
majewsky
I wonder much how XMPP is left over in WhatsApp's guts at this point.

~~~
basch
facebook chat and whatsapp were both written in erlang and used ejabberd. It's
kind of funny that through rewrites they have become less standard and
compatible, and now the goal is to bring them back together closer to where
they were.

------
xfour
Perhaps I'm being cynical, but I can see the business salivating over this.
Integrate tracking into WhatsApp, you can now more easily graph who people
talk to and use that for their FB and IG accounts, and probably destroy the
e2e encryption while they're at it. Therefore re-monitizing that section of
their userbase.

~~~
DCKing
It's easy to grab your pitchfork when seeing just a headline, but I'm quoting
the article verbatim here:

> Mr. Zuckerberg has also ordered all of the apps to incorporate end-to-end
> encryption, the people said, a significant step that protects messages from
> being viewed by anyone except the participants in the conversation.

~~~
realusername
I highly doubt Messenger will have end-to-end encryption, especially that they
have to display those messages on Facebook web.

~~~
Spivak
WhatsApp's UX is pretty darn good and would be copied for Messenger. You sign-
in on the web from your phone and then messages are proxied through it.

Also an option to enable web E2E with a password-protected key stored on FB's
servers is still pretty darn good.

~~~
realusername
Yes but Whatsapp does not have a real web client unlike Messenger,
web.whatsapp.com is just reading data from your phone.

People are using both Messenger & Facebook web to send messages, they will
have to break that somewhere for end-to-end.

~~~
Spivak
It just means that two (or n) keys will need to be able to decrypt the message
database. The web client doesn't have to behave any differently than the
native client.

If Facebook is storing your encrypted message database on their servers then
the problem gets significantly easier.

------
mikece
Ironic timing: I just adopted Singal as a replacement for WhatsApp and have
been telling all of my WhatsApp contacts I’m going to drop it in favor of
Signal because I don’t trust FB not to fiddle with Whatsapp’s Infrastructure
or pull games with the end-to-end encryption.

------
zadler
If they change whatsapp im moving to telegram end of story.

~~~
dmix
Signal is the better choice

~~~
lighthazard
While it's the more secure choice, it's definitely not 'better'. Telegram has
a better messaging infrastructure, more reliable, multi-platform (doesn't
_need_ a phone), can create identities without a phone number, and (most
important, IMO) the quality of life of using the app is far superior.

Use Signal if you absolutely need end to end encryption, extremely secure
chat, and no way to use it outside of your phone being on and connected to the
Internet.

Use Telegram if you want chat. Don't except high levels of security and for
the average user who already uses Facebook Messenger and Instagram, it's good
enough.

~~~
whyever
> Use Signal if you absolutely need end to end encryption, extremely secure
> chat, and no way to use it outside of your phone being on and connected to
> the Internet.

You can use Signal on Desktop without your phone being online. (This does not
work with WhatsApp.)

~~~
throwawaylolx
How does it work? Where is the private key stored?

~~~
lorenzhs
On the desktop. It's synced when you set up your desktop client (you have to
scan a QR code on your phone).

~~~
daemin
And therein lies the problem the original poster was referring to: no way to
create a WhatsApp account without a phone number.

------
rhema
On the list of end-to-end encryption platforms I would trust the least,
Messenger might be number 1. If they can make this happen slowly, maybe it
will work.

~~~
majortennis
messenger listens to you 24/7 i experienced this first hand with ridiculously
specific targeted ads.

------
progx
"Currently, that isn’t possible because the apps are separate."

It is impossible, because the don't want an open API, which other clients can
use too.

~~~
ambivalence
Open APIs led to some of the biggest anti-Facebook stories over the last two
years. I'd also like to see external clients and so on, but I don't expect
that, given how many problems that brings.

~~~
ge0rg
Facebook got into trouble for opening data about users to its business
partners. I'm sure this is not the same kind of "open API" that you would use
to access and control your account and your interactions with the Silo.
However, this kind of API will empower you to use a client that allows you to
spend _less_ time on Facebook, the opposite of their strategy.

------
pmlnr
If only there was a federated protocol for messaging... oh, wait, there at
least 2: XMPP and Matrix.

I guess everything old is new again.

------
billfruit
While much of the commentary is negative here, I do think this will give us
inter-operability among whatsapp, messenger, facebook and instagram. For those
who have accounts on all these, it will be beneficial to be able to access
them in an richer, integrated manner.

------
octosphere
I saw this a few days ago. If this means I can populate my empty Instagram
profile (which was weirdly given to me by having a Facebook account) - then
this is a win. I share a lot of images on Facebook, so if these went on my
Instagram feed I would be really happy.

~~~
fastball
You can already automate that fairly easily.

~~~
octosphere
You mean using something like IFTTT?[1]

[1] [https://ifttt.com](https://ifttt.com)

------
deca6cda37d0
Apple should really make a android version of iMessage.

~~~
jumpman500
If they did it for iMessage and Facetime they'd capture all chat traffic in
America in a week. They'd risk losing the premium status of the iphone, but I
think the real risk is they'd start a war with facebook and google. They'd be
betting that google and facebook would keep their apps on the iphone if they
invaded the android ecosystem. At least that's what I think. I'm not sure if
Apple is ready to say all their applications are better then Google's yet.

~~~
robjan
I think a lot of us are now sufficiently locked into our ecosystem. Most iOS
users would never "downgrade" to Android but I bet many Androids would be
willing to pay $10/year for iMessage

------
viach
But, Instagram has messaging already, no? So it's only needed to drop WhatsApp
and Messenger to get integration done. Ah, and move users accounts.

------
olivermarks
Anyone know of a viable whatsapp alternative that lots of people could use?
The problem with all these systems is you have to go where people are, rather
than where you'd like to be. whatsapp is ubiquitous but this is looking even
worse for snooping now and I'd like to have a credible alternative to suggest.
I thought signal was it but most people aren't using it

------
spoid
It is also worth mentioning that Whatsapp relentlessly buggers you to backup
to Google Drive or iCloud respectively, where all messages and contents are
stored in plain text (at least on Drive, not sure about iCloud).

It's nice that they advertise end-to-end encrypting the messages in transit,
but then just dump everything to the world's biggest data mining machine.

------
SketchySeaBeast
I was under the (naive) assumption that Whatsapp prevents snooping for
building a digital simulacrum of you - am I wrong in this? I see the article
says that they are working on making the messaging product end-to-end
encrypted, how do they know that they need to try and sell me socks because I
mentioned socks once in a conversation to my grandmother?

~~~
daat
Whatsapp has end to end encryption. But the metadata is not encrypted, and
Facebook uses that data to track you. What is in the metadata? If I'm not
mistaken it's the recipient, the time and probably the IP address of where you
sent it. So if you start talking to someone new in Whatsapp, it shouldn't be a
surprised when Facebook/Instagram will suggest you add them as friends/follow
them based on that data. It doesn't know what you send to you're ex on a
Friday at 2AM, and it doesn't know that you what you sent to your friend the
next day, from her home WiFi.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Ah, ok, so the rule of thumb is you can talk about having murdered a guy, but
don't message the person you murdered right before you kill them?

------
ggm
Oh, if only we had some activity to define open standards so we could do
secure interpersonal message with any app using common standard protocols and
cryptography.

Oh wait. We do. That's what the IETF is for. We just let pricks like
Zuckerberg run closed gardens because we suck at using choice to walk to
things like signal.

Go signal!

~~~
bascule
Might want to check the names on this IETF draft...
[https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-mls-
protocol-02.html](https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-mls-protocol-02.html)

~~~
ggm
One Facebook author and like apple iMessages which used xmpp they lock the
anchor certificate to a walled garden.

They're writing standards and deploying closed ecologies.

~~~
tptacek
I'm not getting the sense from you that you're especially familiar with how
this particular IETF effort came together.

~~~
ggm
True. Since i'm familiar with Richard Barnes I'll ask him in Prague.

Your comments in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16325803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16325803)
seem relevant.

~~~
tptacek
I'm not optimistic about MLS, the standard. I also don't think it's a secret
plot against open protocols.

~~~
ggm
I don't think I am a secret plot believer. I just observe apple and others
deploy group communication software and person to person as walled gardens
even when they use xmpp and like protocols.

------
objektif
The question I have abiut this is that some news agencies claim that this will
make it harder for regulators to break up FB. Hows it even a legitimate
argument. Cant FB use the same technology replicated for each product in the
worst case?

------
logifail
Q: for those of us with friends/groups that still insist on using WhatsApp to
co-ordinate stuff, what's the recommended way to use it while handing over as
little data as possible?

------
stirbot
Is there a paid secure messaging platform anyone can recommend? I don't want
drag my friends and family to another platform only have it sell its users to
the highest bidder.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
iMessage. Just buy an iPhone.

Before anyone gets pissy, think about it, it's true.

~~~
stirbot
There is no reason a chat app can't be multiplatform, plus the total cost to
transition to iPhones would be in the thousands. Most of them would spring
$3-5 a month for a platform secure though.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Ok? That doesn't make my answer to the question wrong.

FTR: I would _love_!!! an open source / open protocol messaging platform that
wasn't owned by anyone. But, that doesn't seem to be in the cards for us all.

------
aboutruby
I'm guessing this means unifying every Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp user
account into one unified "Facebook" account (already happened for Instagram).

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
> already happened for Instagram

This is the case for business accounts but not quite for normal users just
yet. You can create an Instagram account with a username and password and it
will repeatedly nag you to connect to Facebook for a while but eventually give
up.

------
strikelaserclaw
I'd image they want to consolidate all their services and add a couple more
like what wechat did. They will probably add the ability to send money.

------
0xfffff
Hopefully the EU sues them - this is unacceptable. Facebook should have never
been allowed to buy out its core competition.

------
ersiees
This would actually make me delete my Facebook account finally, if I can
message all people on Facebook through WhatsApp.

------
rblion
I don't know if this will fix the underlying problem: people want something
else.

------
_bxg1
WhatsApp... like "what's up". I _just_ got that.

~~~
bb101
Wouldn't surprise me if its name was from Budweiser's What's Up ad back during
the last dotcom boom. It was _really_ popular at the time.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhlZoq3niIY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhlZoq3niIY)

------
danijelb
I wonder what this will mean for Whatsapp's privacy

------
vezycash
Summary: Facebook wants to turn WhatsApp into Telegram.

------
msie
Uh oh...lots of security bug bounty ahead!

------
milin
So long instagram, nice knowing you.

------
perseusprime11
This seems like a bad news for customers who care about their privacy.
Zuckerberg unhinged!

------
humbleMouse
the end is here. orwell 1984

------
fooblat
> While all three services will continue operating as stand-alone apps, their
> underlying messaging infrastructure will be unified...

The headline is missing a key word: infrastructure

~~~
stingraycharles
This has to be the biggest clickbait I have seen in a while. HN title should
reflect this because that changes interpretation completely.

~~~
steeleduncan
It is a shame that HN does not have some system where you

\- mark a title as clickbait

\- either suggest an alternate title, or accept one from a list of previously
submitted alternate titles

When enough karma has gathered behind a title the system can automatically
replace it.

~~~
Kurtz79
I have seen many titles on HN reported as "clickbait" which are changed
eventually to reflect better the actual content.

I'm not sure if it is done my moderators or it just depends on the original
poster to change it.

On the other hand, it is the exact title of the article being linked....

------
jradd
whats 'messenger?'

~~~
detaro
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Messenger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Messenger)

