this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2026
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cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/64745676

A 10-month Commerce Department probe concluded Meta could view all WhatsApp messages in unencrypted form

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[–] ISO@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago

But our hero moxie verified it was all kosher. And we can't question our heroes, can weβ“πŸ˜

I'm reminded of the responses I got in this thread, which ironically predates the discovered signal messages leak in iOS via, SURPRISE SURPRISE, the same component he insisted on using non-free google dependencies for in signal's official Android app (push notifications) πŸ™‚

[–] kevincox@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

I feel like this is getting at something interesting and revealing but I am not convinced by what it says.

"There is no limit to the type of WhatsApp message that can be viewed by Meta," the agent wrote in the email. He added that "Meta can and does view and store all the text messages, photographs, audio and video recordings" in an unencrypted format.

I highly doubt this is true. This is because there are third party clients such as https://github.com/mautrix/whatsapp that send E2EE encrypted messages on WhatsApp. If literally all messages where available in an unencrypted format it would mean one of the following things.

  • The E2EE protocol is broken and Meta knows the "crack".
  • That official client does a completely different protocol which uploads all messages in addition to doing the E2EE protocol.

Security are also reverse-engineering the official client. So if it was regularly doing this I would assume someone has noticed.

What I suspect is happening is that some features in the client (like Meta AI) are very easy to frequently activate and upload a large amount of messages when Facebook then archives. It would be quite likely that the average user is using these frequently. This could reasonably result in the vast majority of messages being available to Facebook.

But I think if the reports are exaggerated it doesn't help sell the case.

[–] Scoopta@programming.dev 7 points 1 day ago

This is disappointing but I also didn't trust meta enough to believe it in the first place.

[–] Sisyphe@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So that cute little lock icon in my WhatsApp my convos meant nothing? :(

[–] SwooshBakery624@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 1 points 14 hours ago

To be fair, the article is 9 years old and things could have changed in the meantime.

[–] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 day ago

Shocking revelation. Wow. I can't believe my eyes.

😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐

A 10-month Commerce Department probe concluded Meta could view all WhatsApp messages in unencryptedΒ form

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