this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
1288 points (99.6% liked)

Technology

80503 readers
3655 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 168 points 1 week ago (3 children)
[–] sexy_peach@feddit.org 130 points 1 week ago (34 children)

No if this is proven it would be a real scandal and would bring a lot of users to better alternatives.

If it's false that's good too, since then WA has e2e encryption

[–] MrSoup@lemmy.zip 109 points 1 week ago (6 children)

would bring a lot of users to better alternatives.

Most users of whatsapp don't care about e2e. They hardly even know what it is.

[–] dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 44 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Right. This place sometimes forget that we are tiny community of techies that hate the system. Makes me see this place as a bit of a circlejerk at times.

[–] Chronographs@lemmy.zip 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah the venn diagram overlap of “people who understand and care about e2ee enough to drop a messaging app for not supporting it” and “people who use whatsapp” has to be a sliver

[–] zeca@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It must really be empty... Two contradictory assumptions lol

[–] BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Not empty... It's hard to embark all your family, relatives and friends on your journey to fucking basic privacy principles

[–] timestatic@feddit.org 15 points 1 week ago

No but average people understand the concept of meta reading and accessing your private message. That would be a scandal and righly so

[–] Rooster326@programming.dev 8 points 1 week ago

They don't but they do know what "Any Meta employee, and every US government employees, can read all of your messages" means

Especially if they saw it now

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 week ago

They don't know what e2e encryption is, but they sure as hell know what "employees have access to all your messages" means. Sure, it makes it harder for them to find a good alternative, but it will scare some away from Meta (unknown how many will actually care).

[–] sexy_peach@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago

True. But some would care about broken promises

[–] termaxima@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

"Your messages are public and being read by silicon valley creeps"

That easy enough to understand.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It's already a known risk, because WA uses centralized key management and servers, and always has regardless what Meta says. If you believe their bullshit, then I feel sad for you.

Also...you don't think that LAWYERS willing to go up against Meta would have rock solid proof from these whistleblowers FIRST before filing a lawsuit?

C'mon now, buddy.

[–] bookmeat@lemmynsfw.com 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm surprised anyone is surprised. It's been known since WhatsApp came out that it's not true e2ee because meta holds your keys.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well they did this whole stupid "rebranding" of it becoming e2e after Facebook bought them a few years back, but literally every security researchers was like "Nahhhh, pass".

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

considering that you can decrypt facebook e2e encryption with a 6 digit security pin... yea Facebook at least has the private keys backed up server side.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't use any Meta products, so not sure how you mean. If you are a user that has been sending e2e messages, then you can surely decrypt said messages if you're a participant in those messages transactions.

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

So, with facebook if you lose your device, you can register a new device to the account and recover your messages using a 6 digit security pin or a recovery code.

This means that your messages are stored in decryptable format either via a private key being stored, or as a separate server encrypted form in a backup.

I just had to go through this with my grandfather a few months back.

[–] yesman@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Also…you don’t think that LAWYERS willing to go up against Meta would have rock solid proof from these whistleblowers FIRST before filing a lawsuit?

This is not how civil court works. It's not trial by combat. There is no standard for the quality of lawsuits filed. And despite what the ambulance chasers say on TV, Layers get paid even when they loose.

"alleged in a lawsuit..." is the same level of credibility as "they out here saying...".

It doesn't matter if it's criminal or civil. The costs to bring such a case are massive, and you're leaving yourself open to a behemoth like Meta just dragging out the case for lengthy periods of time which drastically increase those costs.

No law firm files suit against a giant company like this unless they have rock solid proof they will, at the very least, land a settlement plus recuperation of costs. Just not a thing.

[–] sexy_peach@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago

What do you want from me here?

[–] Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Mark zuckerberg eats scandals for breakfast

[–] sexy_peach@feddit.org 0 points 1 week ago

Yes but Whatsapp has been pretty reliable and trustworthy for many people. No ads etc

[–] sauerkrautsaul@lemmus.org 2 points 1 week ago

we can't lose!

[–] zeca@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

People wouldnt move. They know its not secure and they dont care enough.

[–] pressanykeynow@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

If it's false

How would we know?

[–] devfuuu@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It would not. People don't care. People don't care that meta is an evil corp. Encryption is not even close to the top 10 reasons people use that app. It's just a random word normal users throw around because marketing told them it's good.

[–] sexy_peach@feddit.org 2 points 1 week ago

Normal users don't talk about encryption at all but they somewhat trust WhatsApp

load more comments (27 replies)
[–] Sunspear@piefed.social 41 points 1 week ago

Shocked, I tell you

[–] justanotheruser4@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

That's just another comment