MESSENGER: Don't send messages this way

If you use the Messenger application, this is a type of message that you should not send to anyone!

If you are one of more than a billion users of the Messenger app, then you should know what you should not do in that app. Unlike Viber or Telegram applications, Messenger has no protection, ie. end-to-end encryption and every user should take care of that.

The American newspaper Forbes even advises that you should abandon Messenger and use another platform for correspondence, but we believe that this is a drastic measure and that a small number of users will really listen to that advice.

Instead of leaving, it is probably more useful to know the risks that the application exposes you to so that you can establish your use accordingly in the future.

Forbes states that it is not news that Facebook regularly spies on all users in various ways, but it is news that everything they send via the Facebook Messenger application is downloaded and stored on its servers.

A team of researchers in the field of application security discovered that iOS downloads copied items from open applications, and the security flaw of the TikTok application, which the TikTok team later corrected, has now proven that Facebook downloads user data and stores it on its servers for research. Facebook uses the so-called link preview option to spy on users.

Link preview allows the user, who receives the document, to see a link to a website, service, or site, as well as other content before clicking on them. In order for that to happen, the path from the link must go to that location, service, or site, return and show it to the user, and that path is critical and reveals the user's private data and his location, the researchers concluded.

Applications that certainly protect the user are Signal, which only offers the option to turn off the so-called link preview of the sent content, and in addition to Signal, Viber, iMessage, Telegram, WhatsApp, TikTok, and WeChat are also safe, all of which automatically have end-to-end encryption.

The problem with Messenger is that it involves Facebook servers in all this and does not communicate directly with the sent content, but every link that is sent goes to the Facebook server, is processed there, released further to the destination, that is. 

Addresses on the Internet, there is a display of the sent content, which is then delivered via the server to the user for whom the preview link is intended. This route is not secure or protected and in addition to the private data of both users, the IP address and location of both users may be exposed.

Facebook quickly responded to these proven claims and said that everything they do, they do in accordance with the Business Policy to which each user agrees, above all. They added that they do not store user data and that they stay on the server only during the transfer from the user to the destination, to the user to whom the link is delivered.

Secure Messenger solution

What makes me happy is the fact that there is an option for securely sending links in the Messenger application, and that is - Secret Conversations. Messenger does not have a preview link within secret chats, and if you send anything but text, smilies, and thumbnails in Messenger messages - you should send them in the Secret Conversations option.

This refers to images, videos, voice messages, documents, links, addresses, and anything else that has a link preview option. Messenger Secret Conversations are the only ones encrypted and protected from bad eye views or systems.

So you don't have to leave Messenger, just change the habit of sending files through common chats, which are not encrypted.