How do I know if my WhatsApp video call is being recorded?
The idea of someone watching you when you’re in a private video call is a scary thought. How do I know if my WhatsApp video …
Whatsapp is an instant messaging app for smartphones, developed by WhatsApp Inc., a California-based company founded by Jan Koum and Brian Acton.
Whatsapp enables its users to send messages to each other with text, photos, videos, documents, user location, and audio notes over the Internet.
Whatsapp was acquired by Facebook for US$19.3 billion in February 2014, making it the most expensive Facebook acquisition to date. Whatsapp is available for iPhone, BlackBerry (on BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone 8), Android phones, and Nokia phones, as well as compatible Macs and PCs. Whatsapp was originally conceived by Koum in 2009 while working at Yahoo Inc., one of Silicon Valley’s largest startups.
Brian Acton, his former colleague at Yahoo also joined him in developing Whatsapp. According to Koum, the app was inspired by his inability to get a hold of Jan during the midst of an international conflict taking place in Ukraine where he frequently traveled for business prior to co-founding Whatsapp.
He explained that having a “product that enables Jan to call me as easy as sending a text message would be much more valuable than a billion dollars”, and Whatsapp was born.
Whatsapp was officially incorporated in the summer of 2009, and Koum turned down a three-year offer from Mark Zuckerberg to work at Facebook, instead opting for a smaller settlement from Yahoo! Inc., reportedly $850,000.
WhatsApp is the most popular mobile messaging service in the world, with over one billion users as of June 2015. Whatsapp was founded in 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum, both former employees of Yahoo! Inc., who are each now multi-millionaires.
Some interesting facts about WhatsApp.
1. WhatsApp would not be able to deliver messages if Facebook bought them
WhatsApp’s messaging service would be in jeopardy if it was bought by Facebook because both companies use the same internet servers to send messages. It is against current EU telecommunications laws to let generic technology platforms like this mix personal data with corporate assets (in this case, deliver personal chat messages through corporate-owned server infrastructures).
2. The app does not use end-to-end encryption by default, but only if the option is chosen
End to end encryption means that a message can be read only by sender and recipient. WhatsApp introduced this optional feature in November 2014. Telegram has this feature on all accounts by default. This makes Telegram safer from government surveillance.
3. Telegram has a larger file-size limit, but WhatsApp allows more people to participate in group chats
WhatsApp’s largest attachment size is 16 MB, while Telegram’s is 1 GB. In addition, Telegram supports group chats with up to 100,000 members. Contrarily, the maximum number of members in a WhatsApp chat is 30.
4. WhatsApp does not allow its members to maintain multiple phone numbers on the same account, but Telegram does
WhatsApp has a policy of only permitting one active number per user account. While other platforms are open to having multiple accounts using different phone numbers for reasons such as maintaining anonymity, access in restrictive countries, or separating personal and business conversations. Telegram supports multiple phone numbers on the same account, so you can have more than one number for any reason.
5. Both are open source projects
Both WhatsApp and Telegram are open source software projects. That means both services allow anyone to see their code, identify security flaws before they become problems, and develop new features, or fork the code into their own project.
6. WhatsApp does not have an official desktop client, but Telegram offers one
WhatsApp, unlike Telegram, does not have its own official desktop application. However, third-party developers offer WhatsApp for PC clients with features like notifications and message sync..”
