Whatsapp-Signal interoperability
October 13, 2017 10:52 AM Subscribe
I have Signal. Various friends have Whatsapp. Can a Signal user and a Whatsapp user talk to each other?
I have Signal on my phone, and have configured it to also be my default text messaging client. In general this means that friends who don't have Signal just receive the messages I send as regular text messages. But I know several folks who only have minimal cell plans and rely mostly or entirely on data; and also I want to be able to easily message friends in other countries using data rather than incurring international text messaging fees from our respective phone carriers. In at least one instance, Signal has claimed that a Whatsapp user is on Signal, which makes sense since Whatsapp adopted the same end-to-end encryption as Signal. But my message apparently didn't actually make it to the Whatsapp user, possibly due to the data versus sms issue? Have you and your friends or contacts successfully communicated between these two platforms? If so, how do you have your respective apps set up? Or does Whatsapp's parent company not want its kids talking to us hooligans with Signal and prevented such interoperability?
I have Signal on my phone, and have configured it to also be my default text messaging client. In general this means that friends who don't have Signal just receive the messages I send as regular text messages. But I know several folks who only have minimal cell plans and rely mostly or entirely on data; and also I want to be able to easily message friends in other countries using data rather than incurring international text messaging fees from our respective phone carriers. In at least one instance, Signal has claimed that a Whatsapp user is on Signal, which makes sense since Whatsapp adopted the same end-to-end encryption as Signal. But my message apparently didn't actually make it to the Whatsapp user, possibly due to the data versus sms issue? Have you and your friends or contacts successfully communicated between these two platforms? If so, how do you have your respective apps set up? Or does Whatsapp's parent company not want its kids talking to us hooligans with Signal and prevented such interoperability?
Response by poster: Unfortunately this is the drawback there...
Exactly :/
posted by eviemath at 1:07 PM on October 13, 2017
Exactly :/
posted by eviemath at 1:07 PM on October 13, 2017
Well, if you're dead set on chatting from one app, you can force those signal messages that are going to non-signal users to SMS using this. You can also ask that friend to verify whether he/she might have a signal account so they can fully cancel it (rather than just deleting the app, which far too many people do). You can't sent data-based or encrypted messages to anyone using anything other than Signal from your own Signal app but you can make sure that non-users are still getting the messages at least.
posted by mosst at 1:20 PM on October 13, 2017
posted by mosst at 1:20 PM on October 13, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
This probably wouldn't be because of the encryption. Are you sure that those people didn't sign up for a signal account with their phone number at one point, even if they don't have it installed anymore? That seems like the most likely thing - so those messages are just dying in some inbox in the cloud.
Unfortunately I don't believe WhatsApp (or signal) have any sort of way to interface with other apps. It'd be cool if they did but might compromise their security. Is there any way you can just install WhatsApp as well and talk to people from different apps? Unfortunately this is the drawback there...
posted by mosst at 11:11 AM on October 13, 2017 [1 favorite]