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Comment by bigyikes | Hacker News Reader

> granting Google access to millions of Americans’ end-to-end encrypted WhatsApp messages

This doesn't imply that Google (or WhatsApp, for that matter) can read these e2e encrypted messages, right? I am wondering what information they actually get from this.

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It very much implies that Google can read it, yes.

I've been quite vocal about it but have taken a lot of flak for it because WhatsApp is E2E-encrypted with the newest and best encryption scheme recommended by everyones favorite crytographer so it must be infallible (even if it backs up everything to a third party unencrypted, by default).

From whatsapp faq : "Media and messages you back up aren't protected by WhatsApp end-to-end encryption while in Google Drive."

Wait, is that whole complaint that Facebook and Google signed an agreement about allowing users to back up their data in Google Drive? Like a user clicks a "connect with Google to backup your data" button? It reads like Google's slurping things in behind the scenes and has access to encryption keys, but it doesn't actually say that.

Is the only contentious part that Google might have done [redacted] with the chats and photos?

AFAIK it does so by default, and it doesn't even help if I disable it as my chats will be uploaded by everyone else anyway.

It most certainly does not do so by default. It will occasionally prompt you to set up backups and you have to choose the frequency and method.

Ok, thanks for pointing out!

I recognize that in that case I have been wrong and loud at the same time.

I'm sorry for that.

No, you misunderstand antitrust laws. Signing an exclusive deal with your direct competitor who is as much of a monopoly as you are is cartel behaviour. Google then seemingly abused this exclusive privilege.

Google Drive backups option for Whatsapp only applies to Androids with Google Play Services, and for IPhones Whatsapp's only cloud backup option is ICloud. This does not seem close to nefarious at all. NOTE, this is only about cloud backups through the app. If you want you can backup only to your phone and then upload those backups to whatever service you want.

The complaint about this is simply ridiculous, and in fact kind of shows the misleading nature of it's framing. Not that I expect more of that AG.

Yeah, framed like this, backing up in your phone's default cloud, seems a lot more reasonable. If Facebook turned down Dropbox or Google added that to the contract, there might be an issue, or if Google did sketchy things with the backup. Maybe they did, for the framing was disingenuous.

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