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The Joe Rogan Experience · 4 min · Jan 10, 2025

End-to-end encryption protects messages from server breaches

Mark Zuckerberg says WhatsApp keeps message contents off Meta’s servers, but a compromised phone can still expose them. Disappearing messages reduce how much old chat history remains on a device.

Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg is chief executive of Meta Platforms Inc.

Launched Facebook at Harvard with his roommates in 2004, and co-founded the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

  • Joe Rogan, Host · Host, The Joe Rogan Experience

About this segment

Mark Zuckerberg says WhatsApp keeps message contents off Meta’s servers, but a compromised phone can still expose them. Disappearing messages reduce how much old chat history remains on a device.

From “Joe Rogan Experience #2255 - Mark Zuckerberg”, Jan 10, 2025. Watch the full episode

“when i text you on whatsapp there's no point at which the meta servers see the contents of that message”
Mark Zuckerbergat 2:33:15 · The Joe Rogan Experience2:33:15

Takeaways

  1. Encryption keeps message contents from the service provider.
  2. A compromised phone can still expose messages on screen.
  3. Disappearing messages limit retained chat history.

In this episode

Full episode
  1. 2:13:57Zuckerberg argues open AI can help defend against AI misuse6:25
  2. 2:08:11AI could shrink necessary work and expand creative pursuits4:26
  3. 2:20:15Apple uses its platform to limit competition, Zuckerberg argues7:18
  4. 29:48Higher classifier thresholds trade removals for fewer false positives6:14

  5. 2:32:45End-to-end encryption protects messages from server breaches4:09

  6. 1:58:11A wristband could control glasses without visible hand movement4:32Up next
  7. 1:52:34VR presence depends on accurate hands and spatial audio5:31
  8. 1:46:15Creative screen use is acceptable until it disrupts sleep4:25

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

  1. 2:32:49

    I doubt that what they did was they broke Signal, because that encryption, I think, is pretty good, as is WhatsApp. I mean, it's basically Signal and WhatsApp use the same encryption. it's it's an open source and like it's a nsa um nsa okay but someone could break into your phone and see everything that's on your phone but the thing that encryption does that's really good is um it makes it so that the company that's running the service doesn't see it so if you're using whatsapp basically when i text you on whatsapp there's no point at which the meta servers see the contents of that message unless like you know we took a photo of it or shared that back to meta in some other way um that basically it cuts out the company completely from it which is i think really important for a bunch of reasons one is people might not trust the company

  2. 2:33:43

    but also just security issues right like let's say someone hacks into meta which you know we try really hard to make it so they can't. And we haven't had many issues with that over the 20 years of running the company. But in theory, if someone did, then they'd be able to access everyone's messages if it weren't encrypted. But because it's encrypted, there's just nothing there, right? It's like, I mean, they can't hack into meta and then get access to your messages.

  3. 2:34:09

    So now someone like the NSA or CIA would have to kind of hack into your phone, which, you know, there are probably ways to do that. Pegasus. I mean, there are probably a bunch of ways. Yeah. There's probably ways we don't know of. Yeah. And then, of course, there's always the ultimate kind of physical part of it, which is if you have access to the computer, you can usually just break in. Right. So that's why, you know, if the FBI arrests you and takes your phone, they're probably going to be able to get in and see what's there.

  4. 2:34:41

    mm-hmm um so whatsapp is encrypted but if someone has something like pegasus what they do is have access to your phone so it doesn't matter if anything's encrypted they could just see it in plain sight yeah and i mean this is one of the reasons why we put disappearing messages in too because that way i mean yeah if someone has compromised your phone and they can see everything that's going on there then obviously they can see stuff as it comes in but i kind of in general just you know think we should keep around as little of that stuff as possible so there are some threads where you know it's like there's photos that get shared you want the photos but i think for a lot of threads a lot of people just you know you know wouldn't be i don't think most people would miss it if most of the contents of their threads just disappeared after seven

  5. 2:35:30

    days right um you know what i find is i don't use it that much because we have this like corporate policy at meta that we need to retain all our our documents and messages and stuff but um but before we had that i i used it as we were developing this and every once in a while i would miss something and say wow i kind of wish i could go back and see that but it was very rare i think most communication it's kind of like you just have the communication and then you're done so having I'm going to get to it.

  6. 2:36:00

    Be encrypted and disappearing, I think, is a pretty good kind of standard of security and privacy. And you can set that disappearing time on WhatsApp, right? You can make it one day if you want. Yeah, you can do one day. You can do seven days. And you can also set it across all your threads. You can have a default timer. So that way, as new threads get created, your default timer just becomes the default for all those threads.

  7. 2:36:24

    So I think that it's a really good feature. I mean, I basically think WhatsApp and Signal are probably the two most secure that are out there on that. And of those two, I think WhatsApp is just used by a lot more people. So I think it's generally – I mean, I would say this because it's our product, but I do think it's the better product. But I think WhatsApp and Signal are basically the two most secure ones.

  8. 2:36:47

    What was your take on that guy getting arrested as the CEO of Telegram?