Tag: WhatsApp

Facebook Plans To Rebrand Itself With A New Name Next Week

Social media giant Facebook is rolling towards a new name to reflect its focus on building the metaverse. The company CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to focus on building a metaverse and will reveal the new name at the company’s annual Connect conference on October 28th, the Verge reported on Tuesday, but when asked about the confirmation, Facebook said it does not comment on rumours or speculations.

The company might reveal the new name earlier and it will act as a medium where the Menlo Park, California-based firm seeks to be known for more than social media and the scrutiny associated with it. The rebrand would likely position the blue Facebook app as a separate product under a parent company just like Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, and more. However, the company spokesperson declined to comment on the story.

Earlier this week, the company announced its plans to create 10,000 new high-skilled positions in the European Union over the next five years to build a so-called metaverse. Also, in the month of July the Facebook CEO stated, “we will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company” while talking about building consumer hardware like AR glasses.

What is Metaverse?

The term “Metaverse” was first coined in Snow Crash, a 1992 sci-fi novel by Neal Stephenson. The word is made up of the prefix meta – meaning beyond and the stem verse – a back-formation from the universe and is typically used to describe the concept of a virtual reality version of the internet that Facebook sees as the future. 

Metaverse represents a collection of shared online worlds in which people can hang out with friends, colleagues, can visit places, can buy goods and services, and even attend events by converging physically with Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality. Facebook has already invested heavily in virtual reality and augmented reality and plans to invest $50 million to partner with organizations to responsibly build the metaverse.

The possible new name

Facebook isn’t the first tech company to change its company name, in 2015, Google reorganized entirely under a holding company called Alphabet, to show the world they are not just limited to the search engine. A new possible name could have something on the similar lines with Horizon, a VR gaming platform which rebranded itself to “Horizon Worlds”. The new name will not affect the current products and will continue to act as an umbrella of all brands.

With Facebook Services Coming To A Complete Halt On Monday, We Witnessed Chaos

In this age, where we are driven by and on social media entirely, it’s hard to imagine what our lives would be if they got shut even for an hour.

Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instagram are now starting to come back online after a widespread outage that lasted more than six hours on Monday, disrupting communications for more than 3 billion users.

Not being able to post a new photo can be annoying, but it is not catastrophic. But for Whatsapp users, losing the encrypted messaging service is a life-halting change.

WhatsApp being down means calls and messages to friends and family can go unanswered, customer service requests unaddressed, and vital organizing information unattended.

Facebook said in a tweet,

“To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we’re sorry. We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us.”

What Was The Reason For This Outage?

Through a blog post on Monday night, Facebook said that the six-hour outage that took it offline along with Instagram, Messenger, Whatsapp, and OculusVR was the result of a configuration change to its routers — not of a hack or attempt to get at user data.

These explanations, however, do not give many details on the issue. Facebook says that “this disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt.”

CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted an apology Monday evening, saying the platforms were coming back online. “Sorry for the disruption today — I know how much you rely on our services to stay connected with the people you care about.”

Outages are nothing new in the world of social media, and servers often experience slowdowns. Facebook’s outage was a bit unusual since it affected all the company’s products, including its central site and, most importantly, Whatsapp, the encrypted messaging service used widely around the world.

Why WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram Went Down?

On late Monday, a global outage intruded Mark Zuckerberg’s empire of apps, which include WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Oculus VR, and apps that required Facebook login to work. The services of these vital Facebook platforms used by billions of people were down worldwide, including in India, for about 6-long hours. The apps slowly flashed back to life, but it turned out to be the most prolonged outage in the history of Facebook platforms.

Over 3.5 billion people worldwide use Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp to communicate with friends and family, and a large number of people use these platforms to expand and promote their businesses through advertising and outreach. The outage again shows the world how much we’re dependant on social media platforms and how a couple of hours of outage could disrupt our day-to-day lives.

The Reason

The company hasn’t clarified the reason behind the outage yet, but when contacted, a WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement, “We’re aware that some people are experiencing issues with WhatsApp at the moment. We’re working to get things back to normal and will send an update here as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience!” A similar official statement arrives from a Facebook and Instagram spokesperson apologizing for the inconvenience.

The outage could be due to issues related to the server-side, like past outage incidents wherein platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger experienced massive outages. Another reason could be issues related to its Domain Name System records, often referred to as the internet’s phone book, which is where those sites stay live. One of the Twitter users discovered and tweeted, “someone nuked the DNS A and AAA records for Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp”.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of the situation, Twitter CEO jokingly asked the same user who revealed the issues related to DNS A and AAA records how much are Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp up for sale? Furthermore, during the 6-hour long outage, people favoured Twitter, Signal, iMessage and others to connect with friends and family members. Facebook and its platforms ultimately restored their services after a team got access to the server computers, but the outage’s cause remained unclear.

All About Facebook This Week!

Whatsapp’s message reporting has been under scrutiny lately after an investigation revealed a possible breach of privacy earlier this month.

The Facebook-owned company has now decided to roll out a new, effortless method to help users report messages. The latest WhatsApp beta version for Android allows single, specific messages to be reported to WhatsApp without any complicated process. 

The current contact reporting system sends the message that is reported alongside the previous four messages to WhatsApp. The additional messages give context for the company to decide whether they should be banning the contact. 

The new feature allows the users to highlight a single message, whether from an individual chat, a group chat, or a business account.

Anyone running the latest Whatsapp version will get a new drop-down option on the top left when they select a specific message. Tapping that option will open a dialogue box for you to blog the offending account. 

It is still not clear when WhatsApp will launch this feature, but it can be rolling out to everyone in the coming weeks or even days, given its existing reporting mechanism’s criticism. The fact that the feature is already functional in the beta build indicates that the feature could be ready for a much wider release.

Facebook’s New Head of Hardware Division

Now speaking of Facebook, the company promoted Andrew Bosworth, the current head of its hardware division, to chief technology officer, on Wednesday. 

Facebook’s current hardware products include the Oculus Quest VR headset, the Portal video chat device lineup, and its new camera-equipped smart glasses with Ray-Ban. The company is also developing AR glasses with displays in them, which according to Zuckerberg, will one day be as ubiquitous as mobile phones. A smartwatch with a detachable display and two cameras is also in the works for as soon as next year.

Bosworth is one of Facebook’s longest-serving executives and is working in the company for over 15 years.

Whatsapp Fires Back At Apple’s Child Safety Plan

Whatsapp’s head Will Cathcart said the company wouldn’t adopt Apple’s new Child Safety measures, meant to stop the spread of child abuse imagery. 

This comes a day after Apple confirmed plans for new software that will detect child abuse images on user’s iCloud photos. 

Whatsapp’s head says that he is “concerned” by the plans. In a Twitter thread, Will Cathcart called it an “Apple built and operated surveillance system that can be easily used to scan private content for anything they or the government decides it wants to control. He said Apple had taken the wrong path to improve its response to child sexual abuse material. 

A spokesperson for Apple has disputed these claims made by Cathcart and said that users could choose to disable iCloud Photos. Apple further noted that the system is only trained on a “known images” database provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children(NCMEC). It isn’t possible to make it work in a specific region since it is backed by iOS. 

Cathcart said that countries where iPhones are sold, would have different definitions of what is acceptable.

“Will the system be used in China?What content will they consider illegal there and how will we ever know? How will they manage requests from governments all around the world to add other types of content to the list for scanning?” asked Cathcart.

It is not surprising that Facebook has issues with Apple’s plans. Apple has previously, on different platforms, bashed Facebook over its record on Privacy, even though the social network has embraced end-to-end encryption. 

It is not just Whatsapp that has criticized Apple’s new Child Safety measure. Other people who have raised concerns include Edward Snowden, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, professors, and more. 

How Will The New Apple Tool Work?

The new tool is meant to enable parents to play a more active role in helping their children to navigate online communication. Through the software, Messages will use machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if the content being shared is sexually explicit. 

This technology will not require Apple to access your child’s private communications since nothing is passed back to Apple’s server in the cloud. 

If a sensitive photo is discovered in the texts, it will be blocked, and a label will appear below the photo stating, “this may be sensitive.”

Read more about Apple’s New Child Safety Software here.

 

Whatsapp Launches View Once Feature : Send Disappearing Photos And Videos

Messaging app Whatsapp has recently rolled out a ‘View Once’ feature that deletes photos or videos from the app once the recipient has opened them.

You can make the photo or video to deliver on ‘view once’ by tapping the ‘1’ button to the left of the send button. It will get deleted once the recipient has opened it. However, the recipient will see if it’s a regular photo/video or a disappearing one. 

The message will be shown as opened once the content has been viewed.

In June, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that this feature would be coming on Whatsapp, although the details were very scarce about the same. 

In a blog post, Whatsapp has warned about using this feature only with people you trust not to take a screenshot. The app won’t notify you if someone takes a screenshot. 

“Only send photos or videos with view once media enabled to trusted individuals. For example, it’s possible for someone to: Take a screenshot or screen recording of the media before it disappears. You won’t be notified if someone takes a screenshot or screen recording.”

Moreover, the media content sent using the ‘view once’ feature will no longer be visible in the chat where it was sent once the recipient exits the media viewer. The content will also not be saved on the recipient’s gallery, and they won’t forward it through the app. Also, the content will expire from the chat if it’s not opened within 14 days. 

Key Features of View Once

  • Recipients will not be able to save the content in their gallery.
  • Once you have viewed the content, you won’t be able to view it again.
  • One cannot forward the photos/videos with this feature.
  • The sender will be able to see if the recipient has opened the content. 
  • If you don’t open it within 14 days, the content will expire.
  • The sender must select the ‘view once’ feature each time they want to send it with this feature.
  • If the message is unopened, it can be restored at the time of backup.

About privacy, Whatsapp said,

“As with all the personal messages you send on Whatsapp, View Once media is protected by end-to-end encryption, so Whatsapp cannot see them. They will also be marked with a new ‘one-time’ icon.”

WhatsApp Cloud Data Encryption: Untampered Backup

Sophistication is the name of the measure that allows you to appreciate anything. A few days ago we talked about a quote – Privacy is a myth. Before that, there was a cry going on about privacy tampering by WhatsApp. Some gave an appraisal regarding the same that this platform provides end-to-end encryption, meaning I cannot tap the channel and check the communication between you and your friend. But, now WhatsApp has also announced that they are working on encrypting the cloud data that you store as backup. Let’s know more about this development through this Exhibit blog on WhatsApp cloud data encryption.

I Am Completely Safe

Yeah, this statement will be your next one after this news came out through a Twitter handle, WABetaInfo. According to this handle, WhatsApp is testing cloud data encryption, the backup of which you make or have scheduled through WhatsApp. The recent beta update on Android by WhatsApp (2.21.15.5) has inducted this feature. WhatsApp’s parent firm, Facebook, has started testing it to ensure better portability and deployment to other devices as well.

What does this mean?

Let’s understand it with an example. Consider me a crooked personality who wants to jeopardize your position by using my link with the Home Ministry (Don’t stop reading my articles as it’s just an example as I really don’t have anyone there). Now, I know that I cannot see or read what messages you are sending or receiving through WhatsApp. The one thing I know is that before going to sleep, you have scheduled your backup. So, I will get into space in the cloud where your WhatsApp backup data gets stored. I just love the way I got everything as I started downloading files. But, hey, wait. It is asking for a passcode that I don’t know. Damn encryption has not allowed me to see even the WhatsApp data stored as backup.

Anything more in WhatsApp Cloud Data Encryption

Well, it’s news coming from a Twitter handle. So, even a 280-character tweet cannot give full-fledged information. However, one can assume that there will be a passcode that a user may get after the backup comes with encryption. Hence, as of now, you should welcome this measure by WhatsApp for its cloud data encryption. It’s for sure that it has somewhere relieved you in terms of delivering amplified and enhanced privacy.

WhatsApp Banned 2 Million Indian Accounts Under New IT Rules

The number one instant messaging platform in the world, WhatsApp mentioned in its first transparency report, published under compliance with the new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, that it had banned over 2 million Indian accounts to deter harmful behaviour and spam on its platform between the 30-day period of May 15 and June 15, 2021.

The monthly average of accounts being banned or disabled on WhatsApp is about 8 million throughout the world. The company said in a statement that almost 95% of the account bans were carried out automatically after the process detected the unauthorised use of automated or bulk messaging.

The Facebook-owned company received a total of 345 reports during a 30-day period and added that India alone holds a 25 per cent share of all the accounts banned in the world. The company distinguishes an Indian registered account through the mobile number starting with +91 country code and prohibits them by following its three-stage process. 

The company received a total of 70 reports for account support, 204 for ban appeals (of which the company took remedial action in 63 occurrences), 20 for other support, 43 for product support, 8 for safety issues and responded to all the complaints. 

Being the largest market for WhatsApp, India accounts for almost 400 million users, about 20% of the world share of overall WhatsApp accounts and that’s the sole reason India contributes 25% share in banned accounts. It further added that the number of banned accounts has gone up significantly since 2019 because its systems have increased in sophistication and detecting more accounts.

Apart from WhatsApp, Facebook also received 646 reports through various grievance tools; most complaints are for accounts being hacked. Similarly, Instagram received 25 complaints of content showing them full or partial nudity and 7 complaints of accounts being hacked.

How WhatsApp’s Yet To Be Launch Feature View Once Works?

Technology has helped humans to cross the boundaries of the planet, but at the same time, it emerges as a curse to humanity; most of the credit belongs to the people who use technology as a widget tool to leak someone’s confidential data. 

Sharing someone’s personal images and videos was not a reliable option to exert an act of revenge, but people won’t understand it due to their small mindsets. Well, WhatsApp has introduced a new feature for you on the lines.

The latest feature, View Once, will help you to stay more secure after sharing your images and videos with someone. WhatsApp beta testers are currently testing the feature that enables users to send images or videos that the receivers can only view once. The feature is very similar to the one’s already available on social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat.

The View Once feature from WhatsApp will enable the sender to see if the recipient has opened the media or not. Also, it permits the receiver to open the image or video only once, and it gets deleted after being opened, which plays a crucial role in terms of security, but the View Once feature is not completely secured; it comes with a few drawbacks. 

One can take a screenshot of the received media on WhatsApp, and the sender will never know about it; but in contrast to what WhatsApp is offering, a similar feature in Snapchat even notifies you when the recipient took a screenshot of the image. The new View Once feature is available in group chats too, but the flaw is blocked contacts can still see single-use attachments, which raises an eye over its safety concern.

The feature will be soon available for all Android users if it performs well during the beta testing as it is being monitored for blemishes, but there’s no word on when the feature will roll out to iOS and desktop.

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