this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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Privacy
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SMS is still a thing. You need to put your foot down to make it happen.
Edit: May the Monty Python foot squish all downvoters into elderberry jam!
Nobody uses SMS in my country.
It still works though doesn't it?
But it comes with significant social drawbacks. I'm not sure if that's really a hill worth dying on.
Is it worth having your credentials sold or stolen cuz people might think less of how they receive the same message in text form from you?
Social drawback? WTF? People already have the app necessary on their phone and they must get SMS for other things, no?
Not every country has unlimited talk and text as a widely as others. I know my husband's family uses what's app because they can always hop on their WiFi or a neighbors and talk to family, but they can't always afford to top up their minutes. The social drawback isn't that they'll look at you funny, it's that they might literally not be able to communicate with you.
Add in that some of those families also play hot potato with phones, swapping who has what phone almost weekly, something that follows the login and not the phone starts to make sense. I know there are better alternatives to what's app and don't defend it, but getting them as a whole to change apps so they can all communicate would mean a lot of work and energy I can say they don't have these days.
Probably referring to group chats and sharing media.
My point is you need to put your foot down and say "I won't use WhatsApp. If you want that functionality with me, we can use Signal, but otherwise SMS."
WhatsApp really doesn't have any features that aren't also in Signal, but Signal isn't owned by Facebook and was never a vector for zero-click access to your device (NSO's Pegasus toolkit used WhatsApp calls to get at Android phones, this was involved with Saudi Arabia's execution of Jamal Khashoggi). WhatsApp is simply not trustworthy, and a massive security risk.
SMS is unencrypted
You say that as if WhatsApp is actually secure, as if Facebook haven't filled it with backdoors. As if it wasn't the vector for zero click access to Android phones in Pegasus. SMS could not do that (although iMessages did).
Holy shit, if you're being targeted by nation states or other seriously motivated actors with Pegasus level spyware then they will get you. For everyone else, encrypted platforms like Signal or, yes, WhatsApp, are more secure than fucking SMS.