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Communications Facebook

WhatsApp Hits 2 Billion Users (techcrunch.com) 44

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
WhatsApp, the most popular messaging service, revealed today just how big it has become. From a report: The Facebook-owned app said it has amassed two billion users, up from 1.5 billion it revealed two years ago. The announcement today makes WhatsApp the only second app from Facebook to join the two-billion-users club. (Facebook's marquee app has 2.5 billion users.) In an earnings call late January, Facebook also noted that that there were 2.26 billion users that opened either Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, or WhatsApp each day, up from 2.2 billion last quarter. The family of apps sees 2.89 billion total monthly users, up 9% year-over-year. WhatsApp, founded 11 years ago and sold to Facebook for $19 billion six years ago, took the opportunity today to reiterate how committed it is to providing end-to-end encryption to its customers all over the globe -- a crucial feature lauded by security experts everywhere but something that many governments are increasingly trying to contest. "Strong encryption acts like an unbreakable digital lock that keeps the information you send over WhatsApp secure, helping protect you from hackers and criminals. Messages are only kept on your phone, and no one in between can read your messages or listen to your calls, not even us. Your private conversations stay between you," WhatsApp wrote in a blog post.
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WhatsApp Hits 2 Billion Users More

WhatsApp Hits 2 Billion Users

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  • Where are the other 5?

    • Apparently me and everyone I know is in that other 5. I guess we're fortunate not to have to worry that much about security.

      • Oh, don't be surprised if they counted you 13 times already.

      • Apparently me and everyone I know is in that other 5. I guess we're fortunate not to have to worry that much about security.

        Congratulations American. If you lived in many countries you wouldn't be able to do the most basic of communications given how many countries don't rely on that thing you call SMS.

        Also your statement is quite ironic since WhatsApp has primarily replaced SMS communication, the latter of which can only be considered horribly insecure even if you ignore things like encryption which is actually implemented in WhatsApp.

    • I wont be one.
      I am not seeing how this replaces my SMS/Email.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ftobin ( 48814 )

        I am not seeing how this replaces my SMS/Email.

        Have fun with your non-E2E solutions.

        • This is own by Facebook. There is no encryption with them. I don't believe it.
          Also, SMS/email has the advantage of the fact everyone I know uses those. And its a lot easier to setup. And the SMS/Email apps are much better designed than this.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by ftobin ( 48814 )

            This is own by Facebook. There is no encryption with them. I don't believe it.

            The FUD is strong with this one. You probably don't even know what respected system's encryption WhatsApp employs.

            • For the sake of argument, though, let's entertain DarkRookie2's disbelief. How would DR2, or anyone else, go about proving that the WhatsApp app actually does encryption in a way that it cannot be read in between? Sure, we can look at the packets coming out of a phone and see, "No plain text here." Great... we know it is encrypted. Some of us -- at least a trusted third-party -- can pull apart the binary of the application and see that it uses some known strong encryption algorithm, and that's the only thin

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by ftobin ( 48814 )

                All DarkRookie2 asked how could it replace SMS/Email. It's pretty clear that the work to get at WhatsApp messages is higher than SMS/Email.

                • DR2 claimed there was no encryption: "This is own by Facebook. There is no encryption with them. I don't believe it."

          • This is own by Facebook. There is no encryption with them. I don't believe it.

            So this is simply based on belief and prejudice against a company, and your alternative is instead to promote a completely insecure communication method which is trivial to intercept instead?

            *golf clap*

            Please don't ever take any job in security.

          • OK. Let me correct myself to closer to what I was thinking.
            I don't trust encryption implementations by Facebook. I assume anything going thru their systems is always tracked. Encrypted or not.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Hahahahaha, fail! E2E is basically all email, with very rare exceptions that are certainly now whatsapp.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gosand ( 234100 )

        I wont be one.

        I am not seeing how this replaces my SMS/Email.

        SMS is terrible. S is for Short, and you are only allowed certain length messages, then they are split apart. Annoying when you get them in the wrong order. Group chats are terrible in SMS, often I don't get the responses as part of the group, but as a message directly from a participant. Images/video are neutered in SMS. Thankfully I can now use Messages in my browser, a feature obviously copied from whatsapp.

        The deal is, WA is better in every way (IMO) compared to SMS. Email is email - so not really

      • "I wont be one.
        I am not seeing how this replaces my SMS/Email."

        Then don't do anything illegal.

  • ...or, as the rest of us refer to them, the United States government and its various organs.

    • The only requests I get for WhatsApp contact are work-from-home scammers who set up a fake "job interview", and invariably they demand that I use WhatsApp for the conversation.

      That's all I need to know about the security of WhatsApp to confirm that I will never install that app.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        The only requests I get for WhatsApp contact are work-from-home scammers who set up a fake "job interview", and invariably they demand that I use WhatsApp for the conversation. That's all I need to know about the security of WhatsApp to confirm that I will never install that app.

        It only secures you against eavesdropping by third parties, what are you expecting the system to do? "I'm sorry Dave, I can't let this WhatsApp message get through - I think it's a scammer." Maybe it needs a spam filter but that's an entirely different functionality.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. Private criminal enterprises are absolutely insignificant in comparison to what governments, and especially the US, Russia, China, etc. are doing.

  • I must say that I will jump ship to Telegram the moment ads start appearing on WhatsAPP.

    I have already started transition because I know it's just a matter of time.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ftobin ( 48814 )

      I'd recommend trying a few products, like Signal or Threema as well.

    • Telegram? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2020 @12:08PM (#59719720) Homepage

      I just had a brief look at Telegram. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Telegram sounds like a security nightmare. It claims to be encrypted, but the standard encryption is "server-client", which means that the data is de-crypted on the server. It is them stored in the cloud, so that it can sync across your devices. Very convenient, if you want to share you data with the NSA, random overly broad warrants, and any hacker who manages to get inside their security. Yes, Telegram also supports private messaging with end-to-end encryption. However, this is not the standard, and it disables most of their features (like the device syncing), so essentially no one will use it.

      I don't much trust Facebook, but WhatsApp at least claims to do end-to-end encryption on all messages. Which ought to mean that only the end devices are vulnerable to surveillance or hacking.

    • Communication services are not like any other app where you simply choose the one you like the most. If you live in a country where most of the people uses Whatsapp, it is not easy you just switch to Telegram since you simply won't find the people you need to in using it.
      • You don't really need to "switch" like you'd switch between iOS and Android. Install one (or more) alternatives, and encourage your contacts to install it next to Whatsapp as well. I'm switching to Signal, as are a steadily increasing number of friends and colleagues. Not a fan of profanity, but fuck the Zuck. I still have WhatsApp on my phone but it's seeing less and less use.

    • Wire [wire.com] is pretty good.

    • I must say that I will jump ship to XYZ

      You need to be two in order to communicate. I also would like to quit WhatsApp, I have a Signal account, but most of the people I communicate with only have WhatsApp :-(

  • We got only 7.7 billion people on this planet. Are these real users or Facebook's "every account record is good enough"

    One day they will claim 8 billion users and forget to check current world population.

    • There is no way to check their numbers, but there are several countries where every adult uses Whatsapp. These numbers are not hard to believe if you think that in countries like India or Brasil just everyone uses the App.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by hjf ( 703092 )

        No. Not only brazil. Every spanish-speaking country and a large proportion of Europe uses WhatsApp.
        The thing is, in many of those countries SMS would cost a small fortune, like 10c US each, and MMS would go as high as $1. Most plans didn't include "international" SMS either.
        Then Whatsapp arrived and it spread like wildfire. You didn't have to pay for SMS anymore, and you could also send good quality photos and videos. And you don't even need cell coverage abroad, just connect to WiFi and you're messaging ag

  • Quite scary (Score:3)

    by AxisOfPleasure ( 5902864 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2020 @01:38PM (#59720164)

    It's quite scary how much it's used in business, working in an IT Ops dept when we have weekend work involving more than 4 or 5 people, first thing on the project plan for the work is "Set up temporary WhatsApp group for people on weekend work.". That must have happened for about the last 2-3 years now, every single large piece of work I've been invoved with.

    I also read that doctors, nurses and ambulance crews used it during the last couple terrorist attacks in London to co-ordinate their activities as it was far more efficient than the comms kit they had been issued by their various organisations.

  • It certainly feels like they hit me a great many times a day!

  • Are WhatsApp's servers still running on FreeBSD?

    Or did Facebook change the OS?

    https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]

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