It's not completely untrue, there was a whole hoo-hah over getting Boris Johnsons WhatsApp messages. They use it to get around the requirement that official communications be logged and available for later scrutiny, much like a bank has to retain communications in case of an audit.
You also need to understand the context that in the UK, and most of the west other than the US, WhatsApp is just the default communication channel for messaging. If you text someone, it's just assumed it's via WhatsApp.
No. I have lived in the UK for 35 years and I didn't even know Google Messages existed until you mentioned it. WhatsApp is the default and I would only use SMS in the rare case that someone did not use WhatsApp.
There is no automatic integration on Android phones between SMS and another network the way iMessage is automatic.
> I have lived in the UK for 35 years and I didn't even know Google Messages existed until you mentioned it.
Exactly, even though it is the default messaging app on Android and receives their SMS texts for them, most users don't realise they are using it or that when they "send a text" to another Android user it is actually sending the message over data.
Anyway my understanding is that a text is a SMS text, and a whatsapp is a whatsapp message. I know that Google Messages hides itself by sending SMS texts when the number isn't known to Messages, and I guess Whatsapp does this too. I also live in the UK and occupy a space within multiple different communities which insist on different messaging apps. May be I just don't the option to be so vague.
I think what the parent meant was that if someone wants you to "text" them, they actually mean to send a message on WhatsApp and nothing to do with whatever texting on a given platform is.
Also, how are you data mining end-to-end encrypted messages? How can you get data out of messages you can't even see the contents of?
Well I assume that the end-to-end encryption is honoured, and the message is not parsed in any way at either end. I also assume that the end-to-end reference is between your phone and the phone of the intended recipient, and not between your phone and the server routing the message. I don't have access to the source so I don't have any way to prove that, but with the objections by Facebook/Whatsapp/Meta to breaking the encryption this seems to be the case.
No, the data-mining with these apps is in your list of contacts. Whatsapp takes these and builds you into a network. Its not what you say, it is who you are talking to and when. That is valuable.
When you sign up, you up load your contacts to Whatsapp. If you try to prevent it, it will insist and not work until you do. You can try to clear down your contacts and sign up without any. However, it will still take your number and look it up in the contacts of all those who have your number. It now has your name and any details your contacts have chosen to keep about you.
Also worth a note that Boris Johnson (former prime minister for those far from the UK) himself said he was happy to share all those WhatsApp messages on his phone with the investigation team, and it was a government department that stepped in to refuse access to those messages, repeatedly. They considered the WhatsApp messages too sensitive for an official investigation to read.
I think the replies and downvoter may have missed my intended point, which is that WhatsApp seems to be simultaneously treated as not an official channel and yet also treated as containing officially sensitive messages.
Whether Boris was telling the truth or not was irrelevant to my intended point.
