I listed some of the easiest / fastest / fallback solutions i could think of
AFAIK for Telegram, you can’t self-host
I believe the best way is to migrate everyone to a better solution, a self-hosting solution like Mattermost (it’s what my company is using) which is half-way between whatsapp garbage and fully GNU solutions
But it’s easier to say than making it happen
Now if @wimdows, you are higly motivated and choose this path, you could succeed to migrate everyone, but you have to provide a turnkey solution and be ready to answer any question about the solution you chose, it’s not easy
Be in their head : We have a simple working solution (whatsapp) why changes to an unknow app ?
Before migrating, try and use some colleagues you already convinced (or friendly to the idea) as beta-tester, it will greatly help you have better answers
Also, I suppose you have some kind of local IT, try to have a discussion with them about it : would it be possible ? what do you think of it ? Would a server be available for it ? … just to test the waters and see how they feel about it
Thanks for that extensive reply. The virtual machine setup is a bit too elaborate, I’m afraid. Thinking of buying an extra cheap, extra phone. Probably the easiest solution.
After that I will start lobbying for a switch to another app (i.e. Signal or maybe even Telegram).
Yes, I see your situation as a binary choice: you either respect your own values at the expense of team communication; or you go through the process of justifying the violation of your own values instead.
You have some good advice using it from the technical point of view. However. You loose your privacy and data. Yes it is encryptied e2e. But the Push-Notifications are not. Google and Apple have a dedicated api, for that push-Messages, and if you not deactivate it, your client will get that encrypted message from the Whatsapp Server, and the default setting is on android (and on Apple too), creat an unencrypted push-Notification, send it too google/apple and back to your Device… like the other push-Notification. And you can fast answer via Push or open your App and write there the Answer. If you answer on an Push-Notification its unencrypted for Google/Apple, and if you deactivate it or use a private Push-Server (like your own hardware), your Group-Chat or Message Receiver will have deactivate Push too, otherwise Apple/Google see what you wrote as Push-Message on there device creating a Push-Message… you know. And with Groups its more worse, since it is the default on most devices…
Most folks do now, how they got squeezed for every dolla/euro by using a Operated System or Software as a Service, by default… so do not use whatsapp, really, or many other commercial apps. They train A.I. with your Data and change your behavior for money…
Would using the signal-cli be an option for you? You can register a device (e.g. your desktop computer) as primary device with the signal-cli and then link other devices like the Librem 5 (with the Signal Desktop Flatpak) to it.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am not recommending that anyone should use WhatsApp. My suggestions for methods of using it were predicated on the assumption that using it was already a foregone conclusion, and should be understood as a problem-solving exercise set specifically in that context.
I don’t think anyone should use methods I have suggested as a way to justify their use of WhatsApp in the first place. The suggestions are only fit for people who have already made up their mind that they are going to use WhatsApp, but who wish to do so in a way that reduces the exposure of their other computer systems to WhatsApp’s software. (Though I don’t claim that the suggestions necessarily provide the best way to achieve that.)
I am very much of the opinion that WhatsApp is opaque and untrustworthy and that people should ideally neither choose to use it nor be forced to use it.
We had an old Samsung a30 lying around with a broken power button.
Turns out I can start it up and make the screen come alive by inserting a cable while holding the volume down button. Bought a prepaid sim. Installed whatsapp on the phone and the school’s laptop.
I understand: I have not taken any interest in Android or iOS devices ever since I migrated over to the Librem 5 USA and 14.
If you still plan on lobbying for change within educational institutions, I wish you good luck; I would rather start my own school instead if I had any interest in societal change.
I trust my own ability to satisfy my own sense of justice with my vision and passion alone. I do not want to waste any resources attempting to persuade others who do not share the same interests; they are free to use WhatsApp at their peril.
For me its like many use Windows, or Signal as alternative with its indirect Amazon and Alphabet Bindings. Its reality for the mainstream, and i never can accept the free choose of that cage, with the loose of so much data to third parties, because its so valuable to sell telemetry and daily private Data, to calculate and steer some changes in behavior.
I feel like an Alien with my privacy and having computers which just protect me on a level of DNS, and running Code with Software, without drivers for Sensors or apps without Facebook SDKs…
I am shocked seeing how someone use software to do such trivial things like communicate through the internet instantly.
You are right you did not recommending this. I am just harmed by the reality that the mainstream still use that obsolete expansive proprietary software every day… and keep others indirect in charge to this cage by supporting it with there presence and data/lost of privacy.
Wimdows why is no usage of any Messenger an Option? Like just use pen and paper? Or have direct conversations with every pupil? And time to ask questions and real lifetime conversation?
Have you considered using Session? Might be hard to get all your coworkers on-board, but when it comes to security and privacy it’s probably the best option available right now. It’s decentralized and encrypted, available on a whole lot of platforms.
Might be tricky for you all to share the generated Session ID among each other though. Still, I think Session is worth mentioning:
Good suggestion, but I haven´t got the foggiest idea how I would install this.
(It’s not in the store, and the file (type) from the website is not recognized by the system on the L5.}
“Whatsapp is used for quick communications between…”
And if you just send an email? Its not encrypted but it got also sold to many others. So if you like to have a secure quick communication between each other, try to have an encrypted browser page, where every one have set a cookie and stay online the whole life or use a self hosted unencrypted email server reached by TLS. However the Clients, Browsers and Telemetry-Data by OS will scan every answer. It is however more secure than Meta whats app… since you can use it without spreading your Contacts and Phone Number.
Do as you like. I am just think about it. (Hey even a unencrypted answering Machine with a unsafe shared Password, or Email-Address and Password to every Pupil, known and got collected… will be a more secure tool. I would just use a Web Page and every pupil could edit it as admin with the same password… - just kind of kidding-. You know if you send a letter to each other end every one send it further with additional 55 Cent… it would be more secure and less expansive as telling your private phone, data or name to each other to many third companies ;D
But we live in that world and we have companies study our brain and focus and micro expressions today… so yes its not easy to challenge.
Edit: I just fight for peace and tech knowledge today. Its about Information, Behavior, Algorithm to create some individual presentation. And to do that it have to know the target. Which will be a Jocker to sell everything to everyone. Just to match individual kind of something to fit yourself.
I am tired to fight, because i do not share anything online, only f2f and with privacy and offline.
sure, why go for a complicated solution?