Well not nothing. Android apps are quite easy to reverse engineer so there would be a high risk of them getting caught which would be quite damaging for WhatsApp's brand.
none of their users would care. but also good luck finding a news site that cares to write about it and has some reach
There is certainly nothing technical stopping them from doing it, but that's true of Signal too.
isn't signal built reproducibly, without obfuscation?
I was thinking about signal, and a fun fact is that if we invite all our friends and families to signal, then practically "none" of its users would care about such an incident either
none of their users would care. but also good luck finding a news site that cares to write about it and has some reach
isn't signal built reproducibly, without obfuscation?
Not currently, but in theory that is better, true.
https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/13565
I was thinking about signal, and a fun fact is that if we invite all our friends and families to signal, then practically "none" of its users would care about such an incident either