<div dir="ltr"><h2> Open Whisper Systems partners with WhatsApp to provide end-to-end encryption<br><br></h2><p><a href="https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp/">https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp/</a><br><br><br>A comment on that post <br><br><br>The client sees the data. The app sees the data since
the app does the encryption. If they gather all they need, keywords,
patterns, location data etc from the message at the app level and send
it to whatsapp server, whatsapp can claim that their servers cannot see
your messages in the literal sense, but they pretty much are not giving
up anything. They simply moved their user data collection from server to
the app.</p><p>If you text "got some new lingerie at macy's" They can
still profile you as a female, probably 25-35 age group in XXX city,
income likely at 40 - 80 K unmarried, shops at macys or equivalent.</p><p>If your next text is "cost me 200$" your income will be revised from 40-80 to 60 - 100 K</p><p>That
is big data. Continuously learning about a users interests by their
messages. After a year they will know more about you more than your
husband or friend does.</p><p>All this so that they can sell the same to
advertisers. Your profile data is passed along btw sites as tracking
cookies and everyone knows to show you lingerie ads instead of golf
gear.</p><p>Now they identify you with a number instead of a name.
Example user no xxxxx instead of sylvie. Now they can claim we only
collect anonymized data. But remember they can clearly tie you to
different machines you use and places you usually are at.</p><p>This is
why whatsapp was bought for 20 billion dollars. For the 1 billion
messages sent per month that lest them study their usage patterns.</p></div>