Two questions.
My family insist on using Whatsapp for the family chats. I have to keep a copy on a device just so I can communicate with them. I do so under protest, as I was always told it isn't secure. My brother has just said
"oh Whatsapp is encrypted, it's perfectly secure".
First, is it actually as encrypted and safe as my brother claims? That would solve everything.
Second, if it isn't, where can I get some proof that we should switch to Telegram or whatever? Proof which doesn't make me look like a raving loony?
I assume Whatsapp encryption is equivalent to https, your connection to the server is encrypted and "impossible" to be intercepted and decrypted, but on the server end everything arrives as clear text, so the only people that can watch your conversation is the recipient of the messages and whatsapp.
That's not correct. WA claims to use end-to-end encryption. I have no reason to doubt that. It probably arrives encrypted at the servers, not as clear-text.
That'd also align with the business-model of big tech. They do lots of things with meta-data. And algorithms can infer lots of important things just by looking at that. I wouldn't be surprised if they really don't care about the exact content of WA messages.
Reading whatsapp definition of e2ee seems to be the case, I stand corrected.
Yeah. I think they partnered with the makers of Signal and took the encryption from Signal back in 2014 or 2015. I still remember the first of my friends adopting WA and it had zero encryption or protection against impersonating people. I used XMPP (Jabber) back then and just shook my head.
But it's different now.