[HN Gopher] WhatsApp Is Down
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WhatsApp Is Down
Author : foobarbazprod
Score : 64 points
Date : 2023-07-19 20:46 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (metastatus.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (metastatus.com)
| burgerrito wrote:
| I think I used WhatsApp around that time... I'm pretty sure I was
| able to use it normally
| baby wrote:
| yeah same, didn't notice any downtime
| cpursley wrote:
| Did they switch from Erlang to Ruby or JavaScript?
| jmrm wrote:
| I don't have anything to support this, but I think WhatsApp get
| down every time they make a major server side update.
|
| IIRC there was a major down just before they added calls. Maybe
| I'll check up later the dates
| 7e wrote:
| WhatsApp eventually comes down.
| EgregiousCube wrote:
| I haven't used WhatsApp in ages, and a couple hours ago I got a
| very persistent scammer trying to get me to talk to them.
| Probably just a coincidence, but it makes me wonder if this is
| security related.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I had the same experience. Also anecdotal but maybe a few more
| data points....
| blovescoffee wrote:
| Is it going to be a DNS problem?
| c0balt wrote:
| Interesting, looking at the history it appears to be a spotty
| last few months. "Major" outages every two weeks or so. I wonder
| what brings instability into such a mature product.
| Sterm wrote:
| The people who wrote it left and the ones who stayed don't know
| how the system works.
| brasic wrote:
| Pre-acquisition WhatsApp was built using Erlang and had an
| impressively large user-to-server ratio IIRC. I expect that
| since then things have mostly been rebuilt to use existing meta
| shared infrastructure which might not be as stable or
| efficient.
| leesalminen wrote:
| downdetector.com is also showing a spike of users reporting
| issues with Instagram around the same time. Assuming both
| products are hosted with the same infra, perhaps the issue is
| up-the-chain and not related to any changes in the product per
| se.
| leesalminen wrote:
| Basically everything I was doing came to a grinding halt for 45
| minutes because I live in Latin America, where your entire life
| runs on WhatsApp.
|
| It's infuriating because nobody will consider any other messaging
| app. My phone's carrier also gives everyone several free GBs of
| WhatsApp data per month.
| dools wrote:
| WhatsApp rose to prominence because data was cheaper than SMS.
| Is that still the case in Latin America? In Australia there are
| no mobile plans with metered SMS charges anymore.
| leesalminen wrote:
| Yes, at least for me it is. My pre-paid plan (~$14/mo) gets
| me 4GB data but only 50 SMS. I also get 3GB of free WhatsApp
| data. There is no prepaid plan with unlimited SMS.
| dools wrote:
| That's mental, no wonder everyone uses WhatsApp!
|
| EDIT: out of curiosity, which country are you in?
| JohnFen wrote:
| > 4GB data but only 50 SMS.
|
| Woah. I knew there were still places that charged for or
| metered SMS use, but I had no idea that the restrictions
| were that severe.
| seany wrote:
| > My phone's carrier also gives everyone several free GBs of
| WhatsApp data per month.
|
| Meta is surely compensating them in some form
| DanitaBaires wrote:
| It has been like that before Meta.
| toast0 wrote:
| I worked on carrier partnerships (among many other things)
| while I was at WhatsApp, from before FB through 2019.
| Carriers wanted to setup special pricing (including zero-
| rating) for WhatsApp with or without our help or approval.
| Before acquisition, the only compensation we provided was
| approval to use our brand (which we didn't have resources to
| litigate around the world over anyway), our list of IPs (and
| notifications when they changed), and maybe a little bit of
| guidance/support on how to identify traffic; although from
| conversations I had, the DPI vendors had ways of doing it
| anyway without our help. In return, WA got some amount of
| marketing, and sometimes access to zero cost SMS (used for
| registration). Additionally, by participating with carriers,
| rather than letting them do their own thing, we were able to
| influence them towards providing a good experience for users;
| WA did not approve of text only special pricing[1], it had to
| include attachments, and we did our best to keep carriers
| updated on IPs to reduce the amount of miscategorized usage
| leading to overage or connectivity problems. To my knowledge,
| there was only one deal with monetary compensation, but it
| theoretically flowed to WA, not to the carrier.
|
| My understanding is the carriers wanted to run these deals
| because they attract customers who often convert to full
| internet plans. Messaging is nice, but customers eventually
| get outside links and want to experience the web or other
| applications.
|
| Post acquisition, deals moved into Facebook's mobile partner
| portal, and afaik, there was still no compensation for
| WhatsApp deals, but the MPP does also offer analytics
| (audience insights) to carriers, and I'm not sure if it's a
| requirement to have a special pricing deal to get that or
| not.
|
| It's been several years, so it's possible the program has
| changed.
|
| [1] If you've seen that on planes, it wasn't authorized when
| I was there, and I don't think it's authorized now, but it
| doesn't stop a motivated network from providing the service.
| ajhai wrote:
| This status page is for WhatsApp Business API
| (https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/cloud-api/) and
| not for the consumer product that most of us depend on.
| lxgr wrote:
| Arguably businesses are affected too if none of their customers
| can message anybody, including them.
| nine_k wrote:
| I suppose the proper spelling should be "WhatsApp is Dawnn".
| rs999gti wrote:
| I thought WhatsApp users went to Telegram after the Facebook buy
| out?
| baby wrote:
| Everyone I know in SF uses whatsapp
| jaimehrubiks wrote:
| Literally everyone in Europe uses Whatsapp exclusively
| KomoD wrote:
| No, not literally everyone, I'm in Europe, I don't use it, my
| family doesn't use it, my friends don't use it, nearly nobody
| in my city uses it, in fact most people in my entire country
| don't use it.
| chirau wrote:
| What country is this and what is the app you use instead?
| [deleted]
| JohnFen wrote:
| Not all of them. I use WhatsApp purely to talk with one friend
| in another country who is only willing to use WhatsApp to
| communicate.
| chirau wrote:
| So you also use Whatsapp.
|
| Maybe the 'other' people you know also just use it the same
| way you do, for that one international friend.
|
| Whatsapp usage is quite prevalent in SF.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > So you also use Whatsapp.
|
| Of course, as I said.
|
| > Maybe the 'other' people you know also just use it the
| same way you do
|
| I'm confused about what you're responding to here. What
| other people? I didn't mention anyone else. That one friend
| happens to be the only person I know who uses it. Or at
| least the only person I know who has asked me to use it.
|
| I didn't assert that nobody else uses it. In fact, I was
| providing an example that not everyone has abandoned it.
| tapoxi wrote:
| Telegram isn't end-to-end encrypted, all of your conversations
| end up in plaintext on their servers. That's a no-go for a lot
| of people.
| lxgr wrote:
| Only the ones that don't understand the difference between
| transport and end-to-end encryption.
| jcfrei wrote:
| Just because whatsapp says it's end-to-end encrypted doesn't
| mean that they don't have access to your (locally generated)
| keys.
| lxgr wrote:
| Sure, WhatsApp could roll out an update that sneakily
| exfiltrates your local encryption keys and/or messages any
| day, or might have already done so. That's the case for
| most apps (yes, even open source ones, since at least the
| Apple App Store does not allow for deterministic builds.)
|
| It's theoretically possible to improve on that, by e.g.
| providing a way to double-check all client-to-server
| communication, but that's extremely difficult to do without
| at the same time weakening the encryption (since it
| requires either deterministic encryption and/or leaking
| keys via a debugging interface). I believe Threema has done
| something like that at some point.
|
| Telegram however wouldn't even need to, since practically
| all messages are already available to them server side.
| amelius wrote:
| Or the vendor of your smartphone.
| 31337Logic wrote:
| Signal.
| bombolo wrote:
| Most users don't even know that happened.
| wombarly wrote:
| Depends? I remember WhatsApp being bought by Facebook (and
| subsequent privacy issues) being in the news a lot in the
| Netherlands.
|
| Most people either don't care or everyone around them only
| uses WhatsApp for chat making it difficult to switch.
| notorandit wrote:
| Who cares!
| foobarbazprod wrote:
| Noticed WhatsApp messages are stuck on sending to server. They
| don't have a public API status page besides their business portal
| as linked above
| coolgoose wrote:
| I noticed it since I can't send messages to any of my contacts
| :D
| onion2k wrote:
| TIL WhatsApp has an on-premise product...
| minton wrote:
| If a system goes down when Meta experiences outages, can it be
| considered "on-premises"?
| lxgr wrote:
| Why not? On-premise and autonomous/decentralized are two
| completely different aspects.
| lxgr wrote:
| I think it's effectively some weird containerized WhatsApp
| client. The benefit seems to be that it provides end-to-end
| encryption between the company and the customer, unlike Meta's
| hosted version.
| dilly_li wrote:
| Wait, Facebook's whatsapp is also end-to-end encrypted,
| right?
| lxgr wrote:
| It is, but for B2C messaging, there is a solution hosted by
| Meta that terminates the encryption at the gateway level
| (i.e. Meta can see the message content).
|
| The alternative to that is the on-premise solution.
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(page generated 2023-07-19 23:02 UTC)