WhatsApp new goodies

If you're not aware Facebook's WhatsApp messaging service has just released a huge new feature, dissapearing photos and videos. Following suit of the likes of Snapchat and Signal, WhatsApp joins the list of messaging apps offering a "One View Only" photo and video opportunity.

How does it work?

Before opting to click the send button , messaging fanatics can now toggle if they would like the photo to only be viewed once or not. Once the photo is viewed by recipients they cannot view / see the photo or video again (like Snapchat).

What are the uses of this? Why did WhatsApp create this feature?

WhatsApp are advertising the feature as an additional privacy feature. Allowing you to

"Make those private moments dissappear".

They advertise examples such as sharing one off WiFi passwords with friends and family, sharing embarrassing photos, or those one off situations where you're wanting to share a live photo such as "trying on clothes".

The slogan for the new feature is

"With One View privacy is now even more private "

But is it really??

How it differs from its rivals

Unlike Snapchat, within WhatsApp there's no timer setting on the sent content to how long it displays for, so as long as the recipient doesn't close the media content they can view the content for as long as they want.

But for me the worst part of the feature (something Snapchat had a problem with in the beginning), is the lack of notification of someone screenshotting or recording your "private message".

Yes, Snapchat doesn't block you from screenshotting these disappearing messages, however it does notify the sender that a recipient is screenshotting the content, and therefore the sender knows that this temporary content has now been persisted in some manner, whether that be on the recipients phone, backed up to a cloud or potentially forwarded to someone else.

It feels very counter intuitive for WhatsApp to advertise the selling point of this feature as "one view only", and that the premise means that content forwarding is abolished. However they've forgotten the most simplest of risks "screenshotting the content". You would think if they're going to that effort why not implement a simple mechanism to prevent screenshotting (this is feasible and many apps do it already). Or take a leaf out of Snapchat's book and simply notify the sender that this recipient is storing your content and to reconsider your levels of trust with this person(s).

What risks could this cause.

Well the biggest is data leaks, or private information falling into the wrong hands.
Take their advertised example of sharing one off WiFi passwords with friends, family or work colleagues. If screenshotting is still available with no notification, a password could be shared with one person, and then continuously passed to many others. Let's compare this scenario in both Snapchat and WhatsApp One View.

Firstly Snapchat:

Now with WhatsApp,

As you can see Snapchat notification infrastructure would alert of a potential security breach far sooner than, then those those using WhatsApps new feature.

Now, although sharing of a WiFi password may seem a relatively small issue, the principle still remains. Private or personal information, could be easily leaked with no trace or knowledge of the leak happening until a breach is made.

At least with a notification system, the sender can be prepared for any reprocusssions that may come as a result of the "private" and "temporary" data, suddenly becoming stored data somewhere.

The cloud

Add another ingredient into the mix; the cloud and cloud backups. Many people these days have some sort of auto synced backup on their phones, or at least a weekly backup of their photos to some service such as Google Photos/Drive , iCloud, Amazon or Dropbox etc.

We know these aren't always the most reliable of backups as we've seen in the passed with the Fappening iCloud hack scandal and many more I could list. So what if these images were to be sent as one offs, stored on a device, backed up to say a "public backup" or even worse a "shared work drive". Many people could now potentially have access to content they weren't supposed to, potentially breaching many company protocols and even legislation.

The Dark Web & Exploitation

Like anything in the digital world there is always a dark side to every story. After working in digital safeguarding myself I know this feature could potentially open up the possibility of revenge porn, child pornography, sharing of underground organisations and even acts of terrorism. This may seem O.T.T but the use of WhatsApp and its end to end encryption already has links with terrorist organisations and and organised crime.

Many teenagers and adults fall prey to revenge porn each year due to ex partners or lovers keeping images they're sent "in the moment". Which are sometimes backed up in the cloud without either party being aware its happening. These images are deleted off the device itself, but sometimes they've already been backed up else where. It's not until months or even years later they realise this is the case.

Going back to the point of lack of notification this one time content has been saved, the original sender could continue to "trust" their partner and send more and more sexual or graphic content. This content could then be forwarded or even sold to others.

It isn't all ugly though

All this being said this feature will be a well welcomed feature with many of WhatsApp's users. It's solves the problem many of us WhatsApp uses face and that's the plethora of media content clogging up our phone storage.

We've all been there whether it be in group chats, or that one friend who loves sending us pictures of their cat or dog. This feature now allows us to see the images without them being automatically saved to your phones storage. If for any reason we do want to save that nice family photo your sender has sent via View once you could always ask to send it again normally, thus giving the owneeship or control of the content to the sender.

Conclusion

The feature is useful and has it purposes but I feel they missed out one tiny, important component (the screenshot notifications). I hope this post has highlighted the potential dangers and risks to consider when using this new feature and like anywhere you share content online take a step back and think to yourself "What could happen if this content got into the wrong hands".

As always if you'd like to discuss this topic with me further you can leave a comment below or follow me on Twitter @gweaths