2y ago

WhatsApp can now hide your IP address during calls

www.theverge.com

WhatsApp can now hide your IP address during calls for added security

11 comments

If you care about privacy, you shouldn't be using WhatsApp anyway. Not when matrix/signal exist.
- The problem is when you're the only one in your social group that does. No one I know wants to move somewhere else.
  
  The more of us that take the hit the fewer people just going along.
- How are you convincing your contacts to move from WhatsApp?
  
  I don't have WhatsApp on my phone. If they want to talk to me they have to use something else. Most use Telegram.
From the partner conversant. Not "your other partner", Facebook/Meta
Edit: "trusted partner"
Signal had that feature for like a decade. No one should be using WhatsApp or any Facebook products anyway.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Calls on WhatsApp are (optionally) getting even more secure for the app’s most privacy-minded users.
When activated, calls will be relayed through Meta / WhatsApp servers, thus concealing your true IP address.
This direct connection allows for faster data transfers and better call quality, but it also means that participants need to know each other’s IP addresses,” WhatsApp’s Daniel Sommermann, Sebastian Messmer, and Attaullah Baig wrote in the post.
“IP addresses may contain information that some of our most privacy-conscious users are mindful of, such as broad geographical location or internet provider.”
The other measure mentioned in the blog post is an option to silence unknown callers (first announced in June), which WhatsApp says prevents spam disturbances and also shuts down a vector for complex cybersecurity attacks.
“Protecting user privacy and security is absolutely necessary for WhatsApp to accomplish its mission to enable private communication for the world,” the blog post reads.
The original article contains 289 words, the summary contains 150 words. Saved 48%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

11 comments