[HN Gopher] Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server
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Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server
Hi HN - I built an open-source, self-hosted Model Context Protocol
(MCP) server for WhatsApp: https://github.com/lharries/whatsapp-mcp
It connects to your personal WhatsApp account via the WhatsApp Web
multi-device API (using whatsmeow from the Beeper team), and
doesn't rely on third-party APIs. All messages are stored locally
in SQLite. Nothing is sent to the cloud unless you explicitly allow
your LLM to access the data via tools - so you maintain full
control and privacy. The MCP server can: - Search your messages,
contacts, and groups - Send WhatsApp messages to individuals or
groups Why build this? 99% of your life is stored in WhatsApp, by
connecting an LLM to WhatsApp you get all this context. And your AI
agent can execute tasks on your behalf by sending messages.
Author : lharries
Score : 199 points
Date : 2025-03-31 09:32 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| oulipo wrote:
| BTW is there a good "WhatsApp API SaaS" open-source server?
| There's Waha https://github.com/devlikeapro/waha which is nice,
| but unfortunately they don't offer "safety features" in the open-
| source version to lock the access
|
| I guess it's solvable with Tailscale though
| tobyhinloopen wrote:
| This is incredibly cool, thank you
| andrewmi wrote:
| Looks interesting. It would be nice to see something like this
| for all the communication methods in Beeper unified together.
| That way all communication is covered rather then just 1 app of
| many.
| astorphobis wrote:
| Beeper is actually built on top of an open source protocol
| called Matrix, and they also open sourced all of the bridges,
| so you can host beeper yourself and connect the LLM to it. And
| even better - since the protocol is open source, you can also
| connect to the official Beeper server! You can even use
| alternative Matrix clients to connect to Beeper, I do this on
| my company laptop since Beeper is blocked.
| https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/
| rndmio wrote:
| The why is because we can, but damn am I finding the tools being
| built with, or having tacked on, AI depressing. Is this a small
| glimpse of the future we're building for ourselves? Communication
| is valuable because thought and effort went into it, lowering the
| bar on producing content doesn't mean more choice, it means lower
| quality. Already I see a reaction against this amongst some peers
| when they find out something they were asked to review was AI
| generated, why should they put effort in if the other person
| didn't.
| stavros wrote:
| If we find the "thought and effort" part of communication
| valuable, we'll keep it. If not, we won't.
| kevindamm wrote:
| That would be a fine posture to take, very naturally-
| selective, but I find it discomforting because I've seen so
| many different ways that humans act that don't benefit them
| (individually or on the whole). It isn't always out of self-
| destruction or lack of self-preservation. More often than
| not, the choice was based on what's easiest -- a tendency
| towards the path of least resistance. This technology looks a
| lot like trading off intention, and attention, for quick and
| good-enough(?) results. Enough so that I can understand GP's
| concern for our communication skills as a society.
|
| I think we could find ourselves losing the "thought and
| effort" in spite of it being more valuable, because many
| people find it easier. Or that even those who continue on
| with it, despite it not being easier, are broadly labeled as
| a bot because their writings failed the vibe check.
|
| I have confidence that there will always be small communities
| that continue holding this as valuable, but that maintaining
| it in a community setting will become more strained as the
| general zeitgeist drifts in the direction of regarding output
| higher than effort.
| samastur wrote:
| Cool work, but I'm more fascinated by your claim "99% of your
| life is stored in WhatsApp...".
|
| Not even remotely true for me even if it would encompass all
| messaging apps I use. I guess I'm just an old introvert, but it
| makes me wonder how life looks like for those for whom it is
| true.
| CarlitosHighway wrote:
| The way to absolute dominance of WhatsApp with the Normies
| has't been sufficiently analyzed, I reckon. Somehow, WhatsApp
| managed to become extremely popular and heavily used by people
| who have trouble switching on a desktop pc. Even senior
| citizens have no trouble using it.
|
| Is it because they have a high motivation to use it? The UI /
| UX of WhatsApp surely isn't great, I'd even say it's quite bad.
| Where am I wrong? What am I not seeing?
| xandrius wrote:
| You're wrong that it's bad. Clearly it cannot be that bad if
| even your 80 yo grandma can get the gist of how to use it
| properly.
|
| Can it be better? Probably. Does it need to be better?
| Clearly not.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| WhatsApp acts the phone's entry point for many.
|
| Contacts aren't stored on the phone, messages act as
| contacts. Phone and video calls also on WhatsApp. Photos are
| shared via WhatsApp so that's where the gallery is. It even
| functions as a calendar of sorts - events are organised in
| WhatsApp groups so there you have directions and dates and
| who brings what. More and more businesses use WhatsApp to
| communicate with customers.
|
| Why people like this, I do not know. But this is what I
| observe. Maybe software in general is too shit to use so
| people prefer to take a sub-optimal WhatsApp-based life over
| fighting their phones at every step. And I can't blame them.
| gus_massa wrote:
| > _Where am I wrong? What am I not seeing?_
|
| The killer application are the group chats. Normies can't
| make an email group, or remember to reply to all, or even
| make a Yahoo! Group [dead] or Google Group [dead?].
|
| It's very easy to setup a group in WhatsApp and keep the
| member list updated.
|
| For bonus points, it's very difficult to Ctr-C the info in
| WhatsApp, it's easier to press the arrow and forward the
| message to another WhatsApp group.
|
| Once you have all your groups in WhatsApp, it's easier to use
| it for everything.
|
| PS: Also, a few eons ago in many countries SMS had a cost,
| and WhatsApp was free, it was so another good point to use
| it.
| darkwater wrote:
| > PS: Also, a few eons ago in many countries SMS had a
| cost, and WhatsApp was free, it was so another good point
| to use it.
|
| That was the starting point for sure in many European
| countries.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| The worst part is that it wasn't even free, you were
| still paying for the data unless you were on wifi.
| Standard text messaging was so expensive (and so
| terrible) that data rates obliterated standard phone
| services in both quality and price.
|
| I remember paying 23 cents per SMS. Still, carriers were
| somehow surprised when people moved away from them.
|
| Funnily enough, now that RCS is slowly making its way
| back, people seem to forget that free unlimited messages
| are hardly guaranteed with these services. Can't wait for
| the backlash when the first iPhone users start getting
| charged for RCS messages with their Android contacts.
| vvillena wrote:
| WhatsApp nailed the onboarding experience. In a time where
| other services asked you to create an account with an email
| and password, which is enough of a hurdle already, WhatsApp
| looked up your phone number and said "I'm sending you an SMS,
| enter the number you received to check we got it right". And
| then, it never asked for anything ever again.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| I don't use WhatsApp, I helped most of my family and many
| friends move away from it, and I feel like we (you and I) see
| WA in a similar way. IMO the main issue here is the network
| effect and vendor lock-in (for the lack of a better term --
| I'm writing this from my phone in a rush).
|
| > Where am I wrong? What am I not seeing?
|
| English is my second language, so maybe I'm missing some
| context here, but every time I hear techies calling non-
| techies "Normies", it's used in a derogatory / condescending
| fashion. That's reductive (non-techies are not a homogenous
| group) and somewhat intellectually lazy.
|
| To give you an example, WA users in the US and, say Portugal
| or Poland ended up using it for slightly different reasons
| and in a different technical context. WA used to be the best
| video chat app for quite some time in the UK, AT or PL (imo),
| and I know of many people who started using it for that
| specific reason (esp. important for large migrant
| communities). FaceTime wasn't that popular because Android
| market share in the EU was bigger than in the US.
| krick wrote:
| Network effects are network effects. I really feel physical
| disgust and try to keep it off my devices, but while it's
| feasible when living normal, uh, "no-lifer" life, it's
| unfortunately basically impossible when I travel or even just
| participate in local communities (sports, hobbies, etc). In
| the latter case, it's simply rude and disorganizing to refuse
| to join the group chat, in the former case it's often the
| only way to contact hotel/taxi/whoever you urgently need to
| contact in some not so touristy spot. (And, BTW, it's
| designed to be practically unusable, if you don't allow it to
| access your contact book, so no dirty tricks like that will
| fly.)
|
| As to "how do they even manage to use it", well, the mere
| notion of a great UI is vastly overhyped in the first place
| (by designers themselves, most of all). People get used to
| just about anything, if they are taught to use it. And
| learning a 5-step sequence to use any app like this --
| anybody can do that, even a 85 year old (even if they swear
| they can't).
| ahtihn wrote:
| WhatsApp was the first messaging app I remember that didn't
| require a user account.
|
| People already had the phone numbers of people they knew so
| they just had to install the app and could immediately chat
| with any of their contacts.
|
| Compared to chat apps with usernames where you started with
| an empty contact list, the barrier to start using it was very
| low. It was basically a drop-in replacement for SMS. Group
| chat and free messages were the reason to switch.
| IshKebab wrote:
| The UX is pretty good. At least as good as any competitor.
| There are no ads. It's cross-platform. It's secure. Group
| chats work.
|
| WhatsApp gained dominance when the alternatives were still
| SMS and BBM! You don't have to resort to ego-boosting put-
| downs to explain why it is so popular.
| abenga wrote:
| Whatsapp has absolutely taken over communication in the world
| (aside from the US for some reason)? Funerals, trips, fund-
| raisers, even interacting with businesses is now done on
| WhatsApp in my country. When briefly I decided to try to de-
| Meta my life, I found that it was one service I absolutely
| cannot do without and still function as a member of my family
| and community.
| joseda-hg wrote:
| Certainly not the case for me, but I reckon I could do plenty
| via whatsapp
|
| - Group Chat for the family (Immediate, Extended Mother Side,
| Extended Father Side)
|
| - Chat with hole in the wall restaurant to order sometinhg to
| eat after work
|
| - 2FA for local shop
|
| - Customer Support for local bank
|
| - Work Chat (Informally assigned tasks and general info)
|
| - Chat with Taxi
|
| - Delivery Tracking for local courier
|
| - LLM wrapper
|
| - Invoice/Receipt Sending
|
| - Appointments for many services (Like barbers)
|
| I could more or less do anything, from work related task
| management, to requesting a new credit card from inside
| whatsapp
| cvladan wrote:
| Exactly
| mrweasel wrote:
| Some people I know seems to be more split between Snapchat,
| Instagram and Facebook Messenger. I don't see anyone being 99%
| in one app, and certainly not WhatsApp. I think I know like
| three people who use WhatsApp privately.
|
| I do know people working in sales and purchasing and I wouldn't
| be surprised if they had 25% or more of their professional
| lives in WhatsApp. Previously they used Skype heavily. So this
| could be interesting for them.
| lharries wrote:
| For most people, their life isn't stored in neat Notion
| database.
|
| Instead, if you have calendar + email + their main messaging
| apps (e.g. WhatsApp) you cover the majority of it. It's messy
| and unstructured -- but luckily LLMs are great at that
| Explore4526 wrote:
| WhatsApp is a mandatory app in India
| berkes wrote:
| It's really a demographic issue. I've found that in the US
| relatively few people use WA. Same for SEA. But in western
| Europe almost everything is done on WA.
|
| From "neighborhoodwatch" via "the school information" to
| "colleagues". Hell, even governments and public transportation
| have "feel unsafe? message us on whatsapp 06..." In the
| Netherlands it's truly omnipresent, and without WA you will be
| left out socially.
|
| I'm reluctant of WA, because I'm steering clear of Meta as much
| as possible, but I do use it to: keep in touch with at least 26
| social groups - friends, family, colleagues, co-workers,
| business - keep in touch with my date/love, my mother, and
| father who lives across the world.
|
| granted, there's a big move going towards signal lately -
| finally. But I'm not sure how big this really is, and how
| sticky it will prove. Nor if this is just my bubble or truly
| across the whole country.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Even within the Netherlands there are pockets of Signal
| users, Telegram users, and in rare occasions even people
| using SMS or iMessage. Facebook Messenger also has a foothold
| in some circles.
|
| That said, you'd be an outlier if you have a mobile phone but
| no WhatsApp. Everyone has WhatsApp, but fortunately not
| everyone is using it for everything. Unfortunately, that
| usually means using an even less secure and trustworthy
| messenger service.
| saberience wrote:
| I think this is like the 7th or 8th WhatsApp MCP implementation.
|
| I really have zero understanding why people think this is
| something crazy. It's not. It's importing the official MCP
| packages and wrapping basic API methods with an MCP tool
| decorator.
|
| You can even ask Claude or ChatGPT to make your MCP tools for you
| and they will write this same code in 1 minute.
|
| I can't wait until the community realizes that MCP servers are
| literally just regular methods with a one line decorator and
| these posts just get downvoted for being incredibly low effort.
|
| It's basically the same as upvoting someone saying "hey guys, I
| wrote a method which connects to the WhatsApp API", that's it,
| really.
| CarlitosHighway wrote:
| You know why: MCPs are still a hot topic, and WhatsApp is
| ubiquitous (unfortunately).
| enoughalready wrote:
| I've been struggling to understand the hype as well.
|
| I think the excitement is more around seeing how MCP is being
| embraced, and the impact it can have. Rather than me having to
| wire up a bunch of tools by hand, I can now point to some
| configuration files and MCP servers.
|
| I think it's fair for people to be excited, but ultimately,
| yes, your prediction is correct, and it won't be as exciting
| after MCP becomes a standard. This is similar to any new
| technology. e.g. years ago, Go programs and literature were
| popular on this site, but not so much any more.
| _def wrote:
| If I find out someone pipes my chat messages into a LLM, I will
| not converse with that person anymore.
| tobyhinloopen wrote:
| That's a completely reasonable boundary. Privacy and consent
| are critical, especially when sharing personal messages or
| conversations. It's fair to expect that your interactions
| remain private unless you've explicitly agreed otherwise. If
| you'd like, you can communicate your stance clearly to others
| in advance, ensuring they're aware of your boundaries regarding
| the use of your messages with AI tools or other external
| resources.
| siva7 wrote:
| I don't think their main concern was the privacy aspect.
| stavros wrote:
| What do you think their concern was? I can't see any other
| issues someone might have.
| Aachen wrote:
| Energy usage is another. What would happen to world power
| consumption if 1% of WhatsApp chats would be fed to
| ChatGPT?
|
| A third reason besides privacy would be the purpose. Is
| the purpose generating automatic replies? Or automatic
| summaries because the recipient can't be bothered to read
| what I wrote? That would be a dick move and a good reason
| to object as well, in my opinion
| stavros wrote:
| > What would happen to world power consumption if 1% of
| WhatsApp chats would be fed to ChatGPT?
|
| The same thing that happens now, when 100% of power
| consumption is fed to other purposes. What's the problem
| with that?
| Aachen wrote:
| Huh? It's additional power draw in the midst of an energy
| transition. It's not currently being used differently.
| What do you mean what's the problem with that?
|
| Also don't forget it's just one of three aspects I can
| think of off the top of my head. This isn't the only
| issue with LLMs...
|
| Edit: while typing this reply, I remembered a fourth:
| I've seen many people object morally/ethically to the
| training method in terms of taking other people's work
| for free and replicating it. I don't know how I stand on
| that one myself yet (it is awfully similar to a human
| learning and replicating creatively, but clearly on an
| inhuman scale, so idk) but that's yet another possible
| reason not to want this
| stavros wrote:
| If people need additional power, they pay for it. If they
| want to pay for extra power, why would we gatekeep
| whether their need is legitimate or not?
| Aachen wrote:
| I understand why one would think it's funny to feed the
| parent comment into an LLM but please at least label when you
| echo such output on the site
| sbkg0002 wrote:
| Since Meta is a big AI investor, I suggest you skip WhatsApp
| altogether.
| Aachen wrote:
| You think they (plan to) decrypt messages and then upload
| them again in plain text to a server?
|
| Since on-device processing is neither as objectionable nor
| could be very large
|
| I don't use WhatsApp myself because of who runs it and there
| are plenty of better options out there, so I certainly agree
| with the sentiment of steering clear, but this claim does
| seem pretty far out there
| worldsavior wrote:
| They don't plan it because they have no use for it. They
| only care about the metadata. When you talked to this
| person; your wife; at what time of day; was it at night;
| how long is the message; was there a product mentioned in
| the message; was the message about sports; etc.
| berkes wrote:
| They don't plan it, because so far, they don't have the
| keys to do so.
|
| We do need to trust Meta that they really don't, to some
| extent, but people way smarter than me have researched
| the WA implementation of the Signal protocol and it seems
| solid. I.E: Meta appears to simply be unable to read what
| you chat and send. (but TBC: they do see with whom and
| when you do this, just not the contents).
| worldsavior wrote:
| They don't have the keys, but they probably can get them.
| yonatan8070 wrote:
| What prevents them from simply pushing an update that
| quietly uploads private keys or unencrypted messages to
| their servers
|
| Presumably they use proper HTTPS, so all the data is
| essentially encrypted twice, if they just concatenate
| some packets with keys, it would be extremely difficult
| to detect as you'd need to decrypt HTTPS (which is
| possible if you can install your own certificates on a
| device), then dig through random message data to find a
| random value you don't even know.
| TheDong wrote:
| Do you think it'd be okay if they used a local LLM, via ollama,
| and this MCP server?
| InfiniteLoup wrote:
| Personally, I would say that still reeks of being
| manipulative. I've received messages from a friend which were
| definitely LLM-generated, it made me like that person
| considerably less
| jeroenhd wrote:
| If they use the LLM to search ("when did X tell me about
| that party somewhere around Y's neighborhood") then I don't
| think there's any problem.
|
| If they configure it to indicate a prefix, for instance
| when answering questions like "when are you free to hang
| out" and it responding "[AI] according to X's calendar and
| work schedule, they may be available on the following days"
| I might also consider that somewhat useful (I just wouldn't
| take it as something they actually said).
|
| If they're using LLMs to reword themselves or because
| they're not really interested in conversing, that's a
| definite ick.
|
| I would personally use such a system in a receive-only mode
| for adding things to calendars or searching. But I'd also
| stick to local LLMs, so the context window would probably
| be too small to get much out of it anyway.
| IanCal wrote:
| Where do you draw the line? LLMs for searching, BM25 for
| searching, exact match only, no processes at all (forbid
| whatsapp search, make them scroll)?
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| I hope you never contacted anyone with a business account then.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Zuck is already piping it into much worse
| hackernewsdhsu wrote:
| Funny that people freakout about a local LLM while using
| Facebook products. They're probably the same types who use it
| to do their work.
| bilekas wrote:
| > They're probably the same types who use it to do their
| work.
|
| Citation needed.
|
| It's a local LLM with access to an extraordinary amount of
| personal data. In the EU at least that personal data is
| supposed to be handled with care. I don't see people freaking
| out, but simple pointing out the leap of handing it over to
| ANOTHER company.
| berkes wrote:
| Not all Meta products are alike. WA has E2E encryption, has
| had it for a long time. It's the same protocol as Signal: in
| fact, it was built for/in WA by Moxie/signal a while ago.
|
| That doesn't make the metadata private. Meta can use that as
| they want. But not the contents, nor the images, not even in
| group chats (as opposed to Telegram, where group-chats aren't
| (weren't?) E2E encrypted).
|
| What you say or send on WA is private. Meta cannot see that.
| Nor governments nor your ISP or your router. Only you and the
| person or people you sent it to can read that.
|
| It's a d*ck move if they then publicize this. And, as others
| pointed out, illegal even in many jurisdictions: AFAIK, it is
| in my country.
| kingkongjaffa wrote:
| I mean, the technology is not the issue. Someone can read your
| past conversations today and take diligent notes to unearth the
| same insights an LLM might, if they were so inclined.
|
| This might a actually be helpful for people with poor memory or
| neurodivergent minds, to help surface relative context to
| continue their conversation.
|
| Or sales people to help with their customer relationship
| management.
| bilekas wrote:
| This is actually something I am curious about, if for example I
| use this and I and streaming all my contacts information and
| messages externally, surely I'm breaking privacy laws in some
| US states and certainly in the EU.
|
| This seems sketchy to me.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| It very much depends on the specifics around use cases,
| parties, and jurisdictions. In plenty of them, you're allowed
| to record and keep track of conversations you're taking part
| in, as is the other party, but publishing those on the
| internet would he illegal.
|
| Processing them (like compressing them to mp3 files or
| storing them in cloud storage) is probably legal in most
| cases.
|
| The potential problem with LLMs is that they use your input
| to train themselves.
|
| As of right now, the legal status of AI is very much up in
| the air. It's looking like AI training will be exempt from
| things like copyright laws (because how else would you train
| an LLM without performing the biggest book piracy operation
| in history?), and if that happens things like personal rights
| may also fall to the AI training overlords.
|
| I personally don't think using this is illegal. I'm pretty
| sure 100% of LinkedIn messages are being passed through AI
| already, as are all WhatsApp business accounts and any
| similar service. I suppose we'll have to wait for someone to
| get caught using these tools and the problem making it to a
| high enough court to form jurisprudence.
| dev0p wrote:
| You should just assume that every single thing that you type
| into an electronic device made after the 90s gets piped into a
| LLM anyway
| siva7 wrote:
| So lovely. Thanks. Now i can answer all my friends and spouse
| immediately instead of ghosting them for days.
| gabll wrote:
| I don't know if whatsmeow was intended for this use case: imagine
| a LLM performing multiple calls in a short period of time, could
| you risk to have your whatsapp account blocked by Meta?
| d3m0t3p wrote:
| Apparently this is the case:
| https://github.com/tulir/whatsmeow/discussions/199
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Good to know WhatsApp is at least somewhat proactive against
| scammers.
| vdfs wrote:
| WhatsApp will ban you if it detect any kind of automation, if
| you use this or an other wrapper you will -very luckily- get
| banned, even without making calls. They want you to use their
| paid business API
| lharries wrote:
| It saves the messages in a local SQLite database on load -- so
| querying shouldn't be an issue as it doesn't contact the
| WhatsApp server. For sending, this does use the API however and
| needs more caution
| hansmayer wrote:
| > 99% of your life is stored in WhatsApp
|
| That's quite a presumption to make.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| that's a low estimate if you live in India or south America.
| linux_devil wrote:
| I am not sure about how other Whatsapp MCP servers build , but I
| like the design here : Go server to integrate with Whatsapp ,
| scan the QR etc which acts like a bridge and lightsql to store
| some data APP MCP server : To interact with the data , app and
| LLM
| nzach wrote:
| There is any reason why you choose to build a Python wrapper for
| a Golang binary?
|
| I've been playing around with mcp-go[0] and it seems pretty good.
|
| [0] - https://github.com/mark3labs/mcp-go
| lharries wrote:
| Mainly that I'm more familiar with Python -- you're correct
| however that MCP Go would be a good way to go if I do a bigger
| refactor
| ofirtwo wrote:
| Why was Go necessary here? couldn't it just be a whole-python
| project?
| lharries wrote:
| whatsmeow is in Go. Potentially I could have used a gopy
| instead and done it all in python (or just done it all in Go)
| master-lincoln wrote:
| If 99% of your life is stored at one of the biggest advertising
| companies in the world you already gave up on privacy anyway...
| charlie-83 wrote:
| All messages are e2e encrypted though right?
| ideashower wrote:
| Messages are. I do not believe that metadata about the
| messages are, however. So they know who you're speaking to,
| at what frequency, and from where.
| charlie-83 wrote:
| Fair enough. That's not a problem to me but I can see it
| being an issue for people requiring complete anonymity. Are
| there any alternatives to WhatsApp that would fix this
| problem?
| johnisgood wrote:
| Ricochet Refresh, but it is missing crucial features.
|
| Try Briar, I think it does not store metadata either?
| berkes wrote:
| Signal. But not because they cannot read this metadata
| (they can) but because they promise they don't.
| JonnyaiR wrote:
| my mom showed me her phone the other day - she had updated
| her Whatsapp App and now the search bar has changed from
| "search your chats" to "search chats or ask Meta AI
| anything". I've googled a bit but did not find an option to
| disable meta AI and also found no definitive answer what Meta
| AI actually does - if i search for a chat, does it use this
| chat as context to provide answers? does it run locally (i
| highly doubt that)? is it only another interface to chat with
| an llm? It sure seems that this might be a stepping stone to
| pipe Whatsapp Messages into Meta AI and thus ignoring e2ee,
| not sure if it's done already but the line is getting quite
| thin.
| karn97 wrote:
| Whatsapp has no meta ai built in
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| I have whatsapp open on my phone right now. There is
| blue-pink button on the home screen in the lower right
| corner. If you press it, it switches to a chat that says
| "Ask Meta AI anything".
| aargh_aargh wrote:
| So this is a special case where two wrongs DO make a right when
| directed at a single victim?
| sschueller wrote:
| What guarantee do I have that what moves between soft keyboard
| and the message window is not intercepted and same goes for
| displayed messages?
|
| It's a closed source client. End to end encryption means
| nothing.
| echoangle wrote:
| As others have already said, think about what you're doing when
| you use this.
|
| If you connect a not-selhosted LLM to this, you're effectively
| uploading chat message with other people to a third-party server.
| The people you chat with have an expectation of privacy so this
| would probably be illegal in many jurisdictions.
| tuananh wrote:
| removed.
|
| my bad.
| cirego wrote:
| I believe echoangle's concern is about the security and
| privacy of the LLM using the data, not the MCP server itself.
| tuananh wrote:
| ah right. my bad.
| cirego wrote:
| Sorry, I should have added my second thought. Your
| original comment about isolating MCP servers is also
| good!
|
| These are tools where the AI may tell you it's doing one
| thing and then accidentally do another (I had an LLM tell
| me it would make a directory using mkdir but then called
| the shell command kdir (thankfully didn't exist)).
| Sandboxing MCP servers is also important!
| idiotsecant wrote:
| I would argue that there is no expectation of privacy for
| messaging apps without end to end encryption. There is always
| the man in the middle listening.
| miroljub wrote:
| Meta claims WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted.
|
| It's up to you to trust Meta or not, but people who trust
| them do have an expectation of privacy.
| trelbutate wrote:
| WhatsApp has end-to-end encryption
| joolss wrote:
| Yes, but it also has a back door so it is of no use.
| echoangle wrote:
| Legally, there absolutely is. Because by law, the messaging
| app operator also can't just publish the stuff you write in a
| chat. Even some disclaimer in the terms of service probably
| wouldn't work if people would generally assume the chat to be
| private.
|
| And it also doesn't even matter because WhatsApp claims to be
| E2E-encrypted.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| That's irrelevant here because the OP is running the LLM on
| one of the ends, so it's decrypted that same as when you're
| reading the chat convo yourself.
|
| It also misses the mark because you're talking about an
| eavesdropper intercepting messages and the OP is the receiver
| sharing the messages with a third party themself.
| greenavocado wrote:
| > The people you chat with have an expectation of privacy so
| this would probably be illegal in many jurisdictions.
|
| Name one
| echoangle wrote:
| Germany.
|
| You have a "allgemeines Personlichkeitsrecht" (general
| personal rights?) that prevents other people from publishing
| information that's supposed to be private.
|
| Here's a case where someone published a facebook dm for
| example:
|
| https://openjur.de/u/636287.html
| jeroenhd wrote:
| That case describes publishing this to the public internet.
| I don't believe the same would apply when using a tool like
| this.
|
| My family members all back up our conversations to Google
| Drive, I doubt WhatsApp would provide that feature if it
| were illegal.
| echoangle wrote:
| Well it would depend on which LLM you use and what their
| terms are.
|
| But if they use your input as training data, that would
| probably be enough.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| We'll have to see. Tools like these are already common on
| platforms like LinkedIn, so if it's legally questionable
| I expect the courts to cover it soon enough.
|
| My German isn't good enough to read the original text
| about this case, but if the sentiment behind
| https://natlawreview.com/article/data-mining-ai-systems-
| trai... is correct, I wouldn't be surprised if this would
| also fall under some kind of legal exception.
|
| The biggest problem, of course, is that regardless of
| legality, this software will probably be used (and
| probably already is being used) because it's almost
| impossible to prove or disprove its use as a remote
| party.
| echoangle wrote:
| > My German isn't good enough to read the original text
| about this case, but if the sentiment behind
| https://natlawreview.com/article/data-mining-ai-systems-
| trai... is correct, I wouldn't be surprised if this would
| also fall under some kind of legal exception.
|
| That's something completely different. One is about
| copyright of stuff that was shared publically, while the
| other is about sharing private communications, violating
| their personal rights (not copyright).
|
| But of course, we'll have to see, I'm not a lawyer
| either.
| virgilp wrote:
| How would this stand up to the "I didn't do it, I probably
| got hacked!" defense? It's one thing to publish personal
| conversation, and another to have your conversations
| aggregated by some LLM (and if they leak plain-text, the
| "hacked" defense is even more plausible).
| echoangle wrote:
| That's a separate issue. You might not be able to prove
| it as the victim, but that doesn't make it legal.
| virgilp wrote:
| I would say it's a gray area at best/worst. I think the
| goal of the law is that you shouldn't e.g. take a
| screenshot of a message someone sent you in confidence/in
| private, and use it to make fun of, or shame them on a
| public forum (or whatever else - but a "targeted
| action").
|
| This scenario however is "I take my personal data an run
| it through tools to make my life easier" (heck, even
| backup could fit the bill here). If I'm allowed to do
| that... am I allowed to do that only with tools that are
| perfectly secure? Can I send data to the cloud?
| (subcases: I own the cloud service & hardware/it's a
| nextcloud instance; I own it, but it's very poorly
| secured; Proton owns it and their terms of use promise to
| not disclose it; OpenAI owns it and their terms of use
| say they can make use of my data)
| echoangle wrote:
| As a non-lawyer:
|
| > am I allowed to do that only with tools that are
| perfectly secure?
|
| No, actual security doesn't matter at all, but you have
| to think that they are reasonably secure.
|
| > Can I send data to the cloud?
|
| Yes, if you can expect the data to stay private
|
| > (subcases: I own the cloud service & hardware/it's a
| nextcloud instance;
|
| Yes
|
| > I own it, but it's very poorly secured;
|
| No
|
| > Proton owns it and their terms of use promise to not
| disclose it;
|
| Yes, if Proton is generally considered trustworthy.
|
| > OpenAI owns it and their terms of use say they can make
| use of my data)
|
| No
| greenavocado wrote:
| So here's the deal with German law on this topic - there's
| actually a big difference between sharing someone's DM and
| running LLM tools on social media conversations. The OLG
| Hamburg case from 2013 (case number 7 W 5/13) establishes
| that publishing private messages without permission
| violates your personality rights ("allgemeines
| Personlichkeitsrecht"). While we don't have specific LLM
| court rulings yet, German data protection authorities have
| been addressing AI technologies under GDPR principles. The
| Bavarian Data Protection Authority (BayLDA) and the Hamburg
| Commissioner for Data Protection have both issued opinions
| that automated AI processing of personal communications
| requires explicit legal basis under Article 6 GDPR, unlike
| simple sharing which falls under personality rights law.
| The German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection (BfDI)
| has indicated that LLM processing would likely be evaluated
| based on purpose limitation, data minimization, and
| transparency requirements. In practice, this means LLM
| tools could legally process conversations if they implement
| proper anonymization techniques, provide clear user
| notices, and follow purpose limitations - conditions not
| required for the simpler act of sharing a message. The
| German courts distinguish between publishing content
| (governed by personality rights) and processing data
| (governed by data protection law), creating different
| standards for each activity. While the BGH (Federal Court)
| hasn't ruled specifically on LLMs, their decisions on
| automated data processing indicate they would likely allow
| such processing with appropriate safeguards, whereas
| unauthorized DM sharing remains almost always prohibited
| under personality rights jurisprudence regardless of
| technical implementation.
| echoangle wrote:
| It sounds like you agree with me that the posted tool
| would not be legal to use in Germany then? Or am I
| misreading this comment?
|
| Your initial ,,name one" comment sounded like you didn't
| believe there would be a jurisdiction where it is
| illegal.
| dvrp wrote:
| Your information is gone the moment you utter words. I can also
| copy and paste the messages people send me.
| echoangle wrote:
| > I can also copy and paste the messages people send me.
|
| Sure you can, but the people can sue you if you paste it into
| something public. I don't know if you're making some deep
| philosophical comment but this is something people have been
| sued and lost for before.
| piltdownman wrote:
| Except basically all of Europe is one-party consent, and things
| like tech support call centres are already doing variants of
| this for years.
| echoangle wrote:
| One-party-consent only means you can legally record
| something, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're allowed to
| share it with (non-government) third parties later.
|
| It could be legal to record and use as evidence in court
| later, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to share it with
| some AI company.
| piltdownman wrote:
| They TOS utilisation of the data under 'Quality and
| Training purposes', with implied consent by engagement with
| the service in question - the breadth and application of
| which has never had a test case to my knowledge.
| esafak wrote:
| Is it possible to augment WhatsApp's SQLite installation with an
| extension?
| Mystery-Machine wrote:
| Thank you! I live in Latin America and here WhatsApp group chats
| are through the roof. I easily receive several hundreds of
| messages across various group chats. It's not possible nor
| healthy to read every single message. It would be great if the
| tool could summarize all the unread messages from the given group
| chat. I played around a bit with the MCP server and it was having
| problems to even get the correct group chat. The group chat name
| could be stored together with the ID in SQLite and, if matched,
| it should immediately query for messages from that group chat,
| skipping the need to listing chats and trying to find the correct
| group chat and, worst of all, failing.
| sunshine-o wrote:
| By the way, I was just searching for a way not to have the
| WhatsApp app on my phone while limiting the risk of third party
| software and/or have my number banned.
|
| Is there a way to login on WhatsApp Web on a server and then
| proxy or scrape the messages to send them to my phone?
| deutschepost wrote:
| It is crazy how out of touch people on this platform can be. I
| live in Europe but have been to Asia and South America. People
| use WhatsApp everywhere. Just because you live in North America
| where everyone uses SMS/iMessage/whatever doesn't mean everyone
| does. I can remember my parents scolding me because they got
| charged for me receiving some SMS. WhatsApp was a gamechanger.
| You could send messages or pictures without having to think about
| the price of it (While being connected to a WLAN...). So at some
| point no one used SMS anymore. iMessage was out of the question
| also, because only a very small amount of people had iPhones. And
| everyone was scared of sending a Message because you wouldn't
| know if the Message would cost you or not. But everyone had
| WhatsApp.
|
| For some people it is a requirement to have a social life. It is
| not your choice to use it or not. Network effects are taking care
| of that. If you think Signal or whatever is a better choice, good
| on you. But if you don't want to cut ties with some of your
| friends, prepare to use multiple apps. Including WhatsApp.
| hemlock4593 wrote:
| > WhatsApp was a gamechanger. You could send messages or
| pictures without having to think about the price of it (While
| being connected to a WLAN...)
|
| Back, when data plans were around 1GB or less some network
| providers didn't charge you for using whatsapp on specific
| plans in Europe. There were also whatsapp branded sim cards,
| but I haven't seem them for a long time though.
| jascha_eng wrote:
| I live in europe and my social life is spread out between
| telegram, whatsapp, signal, discord. For professional life you
| could even include linkedin and slack. A single MCP server wont
| ever cut it for me and adding 6 for 6 different tools will
| confuse any llm and make it send the message to the wrong
| person. Completely ignoring the fact that I would not use this
| anyways... like people want to talk to ME not an LLM. Whatsapp
| has a chat with Llama now anyways if that's who they want to
| talk to.
| ahstilde wrote:
| could i use this to create groupchat summaries?
| lharries wrote:
| Yep!
| ocBuilder wrote:
| what I'm most shocked about is that people choose whatsapp and
| the like for "end to end encryption" then open a window to small
| companies like OpenAI and Anthropic.
| thegreathir wrote:
| If this thing is connected to someone's WA and I ask "Who is your
| girlfriend?", the AI theoretically could list all the chats, read
| some messages in each chat, determine who could be the partner
| and return the name to me :)) I can go ahead and ask "What was
| the last fight about".
| jlucaso wrote:
| I've made an alternative using only nodejs (typescript) and
| minimal dependencies: https://github.com/jlucaso1/whatsapp-mcp-ts
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