
Whatsapp: Video Calling - bhaile
https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000629/WhatsApp-Video-Calling
======
sschueller
Same day we have this article "Internet Freedom Wanes as Governments Target
Messaging, Social Apps (npr.org)" in the front page of HN.

I know Facebook claims to use Whisper systems encryption but how can we
blindly trust that this is actually implemented in a closed source system?

Stallman and others have been warning us for many years and we have been
brushing it off. Now Snowden pretty much confirmed most of it but we keep
going and entangling our wold more into these services.

~~~
Cyph0n
There are two things that make me trust WhatsApp more than the competition:

1\. In the UAE, where VoIP is illegal, the government was not able to
selectively block voice traffic since it is indistinguishable from text
traffic. So they had to ask WhatsApp to block voice functionality whenever a
user is in the UAE.

2\. If you lose your phone, you cannot recover your messages. Now, you may
claim that they're just not providing a frontend option to do this, but would
that make financial sense? You are potentially losing users who want their
messages backed up so you can... falsely claim that you don't store messages?

3\. Similar to 2), WhatsApp desktop cannot work without your phone being
connected, again because that's the only way to access your messages.

~~~
subliminalpanda
>In the UAE, where VoIP is illegal, the government was not able to selectively
block voice traffic since it is indistinguishable from text traffic. So they
had to ask WhatsApp to block voice functionality whenever a user is in the
UAE.

Authorities can selectively block WhatsApp voice calls, it's been done in Oman
where I used to live. If I leave Oman and use WhatsApp in an uncensored
country, voice calls work just fine.

This is not the case where WhatsApp is registered via a UAE number; the blocks
persist no matter where you connect from.

~~~
Cyph0n
> Authorities can selectively block WhatsApp voice calls, it's been done in
> Oman where I used to live.

But they cannot do it without WhatsApp's help. My understanding is that
WhatsApp will check the following at the server side:

1) User IP in UAE/Oman/etc.? Block voice.

2) User's number registered in UAE/Oman/etc.? Block voice.

This is different from UAE/Oman blocking voice traffic _without_ coordination
with WhatsApp.

~~~
subliminalpanda
They don't need WhatsApp's help to do it. WhatsApp voice calls are done over
different ports, so only these need to be blocked.

The UAE (and Saudi Arabia) went through the extra step of asking WhatsApp to
perform a block server side because of legal regulatory issues. Oman has made
no such demand.

My family regularly makes WhatsApp calls to me from Oman; they just have to
switch on a VPN to tunnel out of Oman's censorware.

------
pmyjavec
Great, another app that does the same thing as the other apps that do the same
thing.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could use an open, standard protocol and network so
I don't need 5 apps installed to communicate with various circles of friends
over different mediums.

~~~
oarsinsync
There's good reasons why we don't have open standard protocols and federation
discussed in this blog.

[https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-
moving/](https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/)

tl;dr: features features features

~~~
daptaq
>features

I'd glady give up all these gimmick features, like stickers and so on, to have
some proper standardization.

I mean audio messages and gif seem revolutionary to some, but in reality it's
just a file being sent from one device to another. And in the end it's these
end clients interpreting the data.

If email hadn't had become dominant so early, you'd also have companies trying
to split and isolate communication, claiming features but actually only going
after profits and monopolising.

~~~
oarsinsync
> I'd glady give up all these gimmick features, like stickers and so on, to
> have some proper standardization.

You have that option available to you already. XMPP is here to stay.
Unfortunately, network effects being what they are, you may or may not have
many people to talk to.

Meanwhile, people continue to flock to

* Slack (deliberately putting this at the top, given the audience) * Signal * Whatsapp * Line * WeChat * Facebook Messenger * Viber

> If email hadn't had become dominant so early, you'd also have companies
> trying to split and isolate communication, claiming features but actually
> only going after profits and monopolising.

If you've tried running your own email servers recently, you may have noticed
that emails going into the big providers (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo) doesn't
always get there. Despite the open platform and open standard, with the
majority of mail flowing through those gate keepers, the barrier to entry has
gotten higher than it should.

Unless you're pushing pharmaceuticals or fake designer products. Then that
seems to make it through all the time.

~~~
daptaq
I totally agree with you, and just to expand on my point, I belive considering
problema like

>Meanwhile, people continue to flock to >* Slack (deliberately putting this at
the top, given the audience) >* Signal >* Whatsapp >* Line >* WeChat >*
Facebook Messenger >* Viber

is lacking consciousness for the effects. It is a comfortable illusion to
ignore the fact that these are all (or at least predominantly) run by private
companies, whose interest is not offering a through and through good service,
but rather a profitable. Ostensibly, it might seem good/fast/better but that's
by far not everything.

As others have mentioned, it is partly our "social/moral responsibility" (hope
this wont provocate anyone) to educate people on the pitfalls and problems we
and will be encountering with these services.

And regarding your second point, that also expands to the consciousness of
decentralisation/federalisation/distribution. Centralize network is a special
kind of distributed network with only one server. But that's not to point of
people like me who are trying to promote these kinds of systems. And partially
thats also blamable on the people who made the system (but to be fair, there
were quite a few, and it wasn't that coordinated).

------
Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0
This is very good news, I'm really tired of how bad Skype's quality has
gotten. WhatsApp's voice calls, on the other hand, are almost always crystal
clear, often better than even phone calls.

~~~
crdb
It's the opposite for me. All WhatsApp calls - including to others in
Singapore literally less than a mile from me - have a 3 second lag. This is
not the case with Skype.

~~~
torrent-of-ions
Yep, WhatsApp is high latency and really latency is more important than
quality for voice calling. Video calling I think is actually a bit more
lenient because you can pick up more visual cues to more easily adjust for the
lag.

------
flyingramen
I used video calling (almost) everyday for the past few years. I find FaceTime
to be best at video calling even in the face of not the best connectivity.
Unfortunately it is limited to Apple devices only. Excited to try WhatsApp for
this.

~~~
mathw
I know why FaceTime wasn't opened like they promised it would be, but I do
think it's a big shame. It's 2016 - we should have pervasive standard video
calling by now, surely?

~~~
lorenzhs
For those unfamiliar with the reasons for not making FaceTime an open
standard: Apple was sued for patent infringement by VirnetX, a patent troll:
[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/report-after-
pate...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/report-after-patent-loss-
apple-tweaks-facetime-and-logs-500000-complaints/) and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12212990](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12212990)

~~~
dingaling
VirtNetX market cap Nov 2016: $185 million
[https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VHC?p=VHC](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VHC?p=VHC)

Fines due to VirNetX from Apple following iMessage / VPN On Demand / FaceTime
patent case: $625 million

Apple current liquidity: c . $180 billion

I see a straightforward solution. Stock buy-out, reclaim fines, shut-down.
Apple would actually _save_ money plus own all the patents.

------
thewhitetulip
I remember reading a long time ago that Whatsapp will not include things like
calling/video calling and will focus solely on texting. Why is every messaging
app doing the exact same thing and why is there no inter-connectivity between
them?

~~~
thomasahle
This. And now that Facebook owns WhatsApp, they could at least integrate those
two?

~~~
gressquel
Given theres already furore due to recent data merging (fb + whatsapp), I dont
think it would be a wise decision to integrate them further.

People started using WhatsApp before it was acquired by FB inc. A fair share
of these might just leave WhatsApp if were to be merged completely with FB
messenger.

There are plenty of alterantives out there.

~~~
thomasahle
They don't have to merge them. Just let them speak to each other.

------
fwn
I'd love to know whether it is encrypted.

They promoted their end to end encryption promise for messages, so I think
they would've promoted it again if it still were true for the video call
feature.

edit:

Google, for example, promised their video calls to be encrypted with Duo.
[https://blog.google/products/duo/meet-google-duo-
simple-1-to...](https://blog.google/products/duo/meet-google-duo-
simple-1-to-1-video/)

~~~
thewhitetulip
you really believe them?

~~~
fwn
I do believe, as I wrote, that they promoted end to end encryption. This is
also what is directly observable in their statements.

------
planetjones
FaceTime seems to be the only service which delivers consistently good
quality. Skype's video quality was abysmal the last time I used it and the
Google app (Duo I think) was the worst ever - infact that one showed the
recipient the video flipped vertically. I didn't bother to see if it would be
resolved, but instead just uninstalled it. I don't use Whatsapp's audio calls,
so I doubt I will use video.

~~~
pritambarhate
I tried it a couple of times. Video quality was not great. The second time I
tried Duo it had weird sound issues. Was completely disappointed. Didn't use
it after that.

It's a surprise since it comes from Google. Hangouts has worked more or less
OK for me.

------
gonvaled
Google Duo is working very well for me, and it is really easy to use, which is
a must when talking with older family members.

Let's see how WhatsApp compares.

~~~
dx034
I really like that Duo can switch between Wifi and mobile network without
reconnecting. However, usability is imo much better with Whatsapp. Duo still
doesn't support calls on home screen on iPhones (calls are shown as
notifications) and often fails to connect if the other person hasn't used the
app for a day. It's annoying to first ask via Whatsapp to open Duo and then
call there.

~~~
gonvaled
Indeed, I have also noticed those issues with Android phones. That is
something that must be improved on.

------
pmontra
Nice to have but I almost never used a video chat any phone app, only a few
times on Skype, mostly on desktop. Anyway, probably many people are using this
so it's a must have for WhatsApp not to fade away.

But please add bots, unless FB decided that their Messenger is the only
platform to survive in the long run and WhatsApp has to die. WhatsApp is still
the number one chat in most of Europe and every developer here would like to
write bots for it instead of for Messenger and Telegram. It's where our
customers and our customers' customers are. Messenger is going to take over if
bots get mainstream and you don't support them. My bet is that it will happen
next year or never so you're running out of time (or not at all). We'll see.

And if you do implement bot, please copy Messenger: exactly the same API and
the same or a very similar UI. That will give you all the Messenger bots from
day 1 and developers will love you.

~~~
secfirstmd
What's the story with encryption of WhatsApp video calls? Can it still be
protected via Signal Protocol?

------
Angostura
Sorry, while it requires unrestricted access to all my contacts, I'm not using
it.

~~~
thirdsun
Of course it uses your Contacts. Would you prefer to add your contacts to
WhatsApp individually and maintain a second set of mostly duplicated data?

~~~
Angostura
I would prefer to add the group of contacts I want to Whatsapp. I might want
my social group there, I don't want my professional contacts on there.

So yes I would prefer to have the _option_ of adding contacts separately.

------
herman5
Since they're one of Twilio's largest customers, I wonder if they're
accomplishing Video calling with the new Twilio Video product [1] that's
currently in beta

[1] [https://www.twilio.com/video](https://www.twilio.com/video)

------
dx034
Does anyone know when we can actually use it? They say "over the next days",
does that mean we'll have to wait for an update or is the functionality
already there and will be unlocked?

~~~
flawedluck
If you're eager to use it, it is available in the Beta version of the Whatsapp
(atleast for Android)

------
Aoyagi
Meanwhile, Telegram doesn't even have voice calling...

~~~
daptaq
Yeah, who want want a messenger that concentrates on doing one thig, while
leaving other tasks for other applications?

I mean, I just love having huge installs for features I don't use.

~~~
Aoyagi
Well, I guess I can see the point in that.

------
LyalinDotCom
I think its time someone created yet another messaging/video app. We just
don't have enough ways to communicate.

------
_ao789
"Hello, can you hear me?" <\- will this be the first 3minutes of every
WhatsApp call now too? (hint: Skype)

~~~
vinay427
My recent experiences with Skype on relatively good internet connections
between continents has been great. Meanwhile, I've fairly regularly had
freezing and terrible latency issues with Hangouts calls between two parties
on excellent connections in the same state.

------
Maarten88
I don't understand the priorities of WhatsApp. I don't need video calling.

I need support for bots.

WhatsApp doesn't have it. Meanwhile, Skype, Telegram, Facebook Messenger and
Google are where the action is, building great bot support. I want to use
WhatsApp, but am using Skype and Telegram now to build a bot.

Bot support could also make WhatsApp viable as a business in the long run as
an independent, secure service. Simply make businesses pay for bot accounts.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
And I need true multi-device support (not a crappy desktop client that needs
your phone to be near you, connected to the Internet and using the battery).
And a way of adding contacts without exchanging phone numbers.

WhatsApp has always been the worst among the major messengers (Hangouts,
Telegram, Line, WeChat all have this) but the sad thing is they can do what
they want. They have the network effect on their side, the masses use it, so
they can get away with being light-years away from the others in features...

~~~
thirdsun
And the masses use it particularly because all you need is a phone number. My
mother or many of her peers barely manage to finish any kind of registration
process, yet they have no problem using WhatsApp. Here in Germany there's no
escaping WhatsApp - it's the standard communication platform.

------
tscs37
No.

Audio Calls on Whatsapp are already bad, not only is there no way to turn them
off, the quality just sucks compared to the local mobile network.

I guess same goes to the Video Calls... and honestly, who does video calls
from their phone?

~~~
j_s
_who does video calls from their phone_

A lot of people, specifically FaceTime users. I would probably be safe in
saying the vast majority of smartphone users, especially iPhone.

[http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/01/6-facts-
abou...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/01/6-facts-about-
americans-and-their-smartphones/)

~~~
tscs37
I guess that question is answered then.

------
arao
"Welcome aboard." says WeChat..

------
nickik
Is this end to end encrypted as well?

------
padiyar83
Love it!

------
throw2016
HN is not the best place to have these discussions about privacy because most
of the folks here are neck deep building a surveillance economy.

If your job depends on not understanding something you wont so it's easy to
brush away surveillance issues just like those whose livelihood is impacted by
global warming find it easy to brush away those issues.

There is the old trope about I don't care or have nothing to hide which is
self servingly obtuse because surveillance is not about you the individual,
its about the health of your society. And the tired cliche about people not
caring, well if people get impacted and begin to draw the dots they will care
very much. So this just rests on a fleeting ignorance of the scope of
surveillance.

Whisper systems uses your phone number which directly ties to your identity
when any privacy conscious service that is half sincere will do everything in
its power to avoid such gratuitous tie-ins.

------
deavmi
XMPP for the win guys.

------
deavmi
Or Matrix.

