this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
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WhatsApp will soon make it possible to chat with people who use other messaging apps. It's revealed some more details on how that will work.

— Apps will need to sign an agreement with Meta, then connect to its servers.

— Meta wants people to use the Signal Protocol, but also says other encryption protocols can be used if they can meet WhatsApp's standards

— WhatsApp has been testing with Matrix in recent months, although nothing is agreed yet. Swiss app Threema says it won't become interoperable

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[–] Mechanize@feddit.it 57 points 1 year ago (2 children)

“One of the core requirements here, and this is really important, is for users for this to be opt-in,” says Brouwer. “I can choose whether or not I want to participate in being open to exchanging messages with third parties. This is important, because it could be a big source of spam and scams.”

Let me translate this for you: "We will make users hop on the most cumbersome, frustrating and inefficient way we can think of to enable interoperability. And making it defaulted to off will mean people using other apps will need to find other channels to ask for it to be enabled on our users' end, making it worthless.

And don't forget: we will put a bunch of scary warnings, and only allow to go all in, with no middle ground or granularity!"

Great stuff, thank you. I can't wait.

“We don't believe interop chats and WhatsApp chats can evolve at the same pace,” he says, claiming it is “harder to evolve an open network” compared to a closed one.

Ah, so they are going for the Apple's approach with iMessage and Android sms. Cool, cool.

I hope my corporate-to-common translator is broken, because this does just sound bad.

[–] Jackthelad@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Oh no, the users will have to go into their settings and toggle it to "on".

Oh, the humanity!

[–] LaggyKar@programming.dev 5 points 1 year ago

No, they have to convince everyone they talk to to enable the setting to be able to use this

[–] SchizoDenji@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah lol. And it's not as if boomers don't get scammed enough already.

[–] linearchaos@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

All that then they'll shut it down in 6 months because they're not getting the intelligence they need

[–] xor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yet another EU w

They're really just regulating big tech on behalf of the rest of the planet right now

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Repairability, usbc, interoperability of messaging systems.

All they need to do now is pass a law that prevents a company from developing more than one messaging app at a time and were golden.

[–] blazeknave@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Google weeps in corner

[–] d00ery@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

Apple iMessage... LoL

[–] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wonder what'll come first, this or RCS on iOS?

group chats will come years down the line

Oh come on. (Though that's fair enough, since coordinating groups including users from different services is likely a lot harder to get right.)

[–] piracysails@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

RCS should open up and let communities create their own apps.

[–] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

From what I understand, it's implemented on mobile carrier level, so any phone or other device with a cellular modem connected to a carrier that supports it should be able to use it (edit: of course, ignoring insufficient access, at the very least rooted Android or some Linux should work). Can't really find more specific details right now though. Here's a library and sample client for it though: https://github.com/Hirohumi/rust-rcs-client

Of course, this is only for clients, it's true you can't set up your own server.

[–] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's like with SMS, needs communication of the OS to the modem to the carrier's server. And just like with anything carrier related the progress is very slow, no mobile phone even supports it (for now only Android with Google's own app that connects to proxy to bypass the modem) and... is my opinion unnessesary.

[–] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago

Carriers already support it, and I think the reason Google sends it through their backend instead of the carrier’s is so they can support their proprietary extensions (that’s my guess at least, and I think I read that the app can also use carrier services directly but I can’t find the text that said that anymore). And as far as I’m concerned that means there are indeed many phones that support it.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 year ago

Cool if true. At least I won't have to suffer with lack of normal WA client on Linux.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 4 points 1 year ago

Good the lack of features in Whatsapp is so frustrating.

[–] guyinachair@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I can't read the full article. I can already get Whatsapp/signal/matrix messages on beeper whats changing for Whatsapp?

[–] Greg@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 year ago

It'll be end to end encrypted. As far as I'm aware, beeper needs access to messages send cross platform