this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
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As evidence, the lawsuit cites unnamed "courageous whistleblowers" who allege that WhatsApp and Meta employees can request to view a user's messages through a simple process, thus bypassing the app's end-to-end encryption. "A worker need only send a 'task' (i.e., request via Meta's internal system) to a Meta engineer with an explanation that they need access to WhatsApp messages for their job," the lawsuit claims. "The Meta engineering team will then grant access -- often without any scrutiny at all -- and the worker's workstation will then have a new window or widget available that can pull up any WhatsApp user's messages based on the user's User ID number, which is unique to a user but identical across all Meta products."

"Once the Meta worker has this access, they can read users' messages by opening the widget; no separate decryption step is required," the 51-page complaint adds. "The WhatsApp messages appear in widgets commingled with widgets containing messages from unencrypted sources. Messages appear almost as soon as they are communicated -- essentially, in real-time. Moreover, access is unlimited in temporal scope, with Meta workers able to access messages from the time users first activated their accounts, including those messages users believe they have deleted." The lawsuit does not provide any technical details to back up the rather sensational claims.

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[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 8 points 19 hours ago (3 children)
[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Unless proof is given, assume troll

[–] REDACTED@infosec.pub -4 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Read the article? An app using signal does not imply that your data is still encrypted from corporations or government. Your neighbour joe is not very likely to break already established SSL, so using signal feels like someone is trying to sell me a bridge. Sense of false security. In fact, that was probably their goal all along.

[–] HereIAm@lemmy.world 6 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

WhatsApp is using Signals protocol for communication: https://signal.org/blog/whatsapp-complete/

I don't fully understand what it entails, but from what I understand is that yes, WhatsApp is using the same encryption and message flow that signal uses, but you're still using Meta's app, and they can just read the plaintext message from there.

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 14 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

To my knowledge, under Signal, the encription keys are locally generated and stored, and the traffic flows between end points as a closed packet.

This does not seem to be the case here, as the keys are generated and stored outside your equipment and, thus, are viable to be used by a third party to access packets.

But I admit I speak heavily burdened by technical ignorance.

[–] kuhli@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

My understanding is they're sending a request to your device that then decrypts and uploads messages, not storing the keys outside your device.

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 5 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

that’s incorrect. with whatsapp, your keys are stored on meta servers (the same as things like imessage). they can simply decrypt them whenever they like, just like being signed in as you. it’s completely invisible to your client

[–] kuhli@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 14 hours ago
[–] Candice_the_elephant@lemmy.world 4 points 14 hours ago

Or they can make a copy of the encryption keys on creation. Using the code is very different than using the code unedited, or using all the code.

[–] REDACTED@infosec.pub 0 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Read more than just the title ffs

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I did and nowhere is Signal mentioned in the article.

You state Whatsapp uses Signal. So, again: how?

[–] REDACTED@infosec.pub -2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

The article does not describe what encryption it uses, it described how they're abusing it. Whatsapp using Signal protocol is public knowledge.

What I'm trying to say is that a company using signal for it's messaging app does not imply your data is safe from that company or governments.

You recommending an app purely because of Signal protocol under an article about how an app abuses signal protocol is pretty fucking ironic (aka. bad timing)