WhatsApp reportedly testing new Recipient limit on Delete For Everyone feature

WhatsApp might soon get a new feature that places a restriction on the “Delete For Everyone” feature. As per WABetainfo, the company is testing a "Recipient limit" on the delete for everyone option, which is said to impose a limit on the deleted message. In case the recipient does not receive the delete message request within 13 hours, 8 minutes and 16 seconds, the request will be discarded and the message won’t be deleted. One might not receive the message deletion request due to many reasons, like if the recipient's phone is switched off or doesn’t have data enabled. This new feature is currently said to be under testing and could be rolled out in future versions of the app.  As per the report, the new feature could be introduced as a protection against users with modded WhatsApp versions. A previous report claimed that users with a modded version of WhatsApp are able to delete messages sent up to three years ago. 

The online messaging platform was earlier reported to be testing a “Block revoke request” feature that runs in the background of the new beta version of WhatsApp to disallow modded WhatsApp users from deleting sent messages after the set deadline. Currently, users can send a “Delete For Everyone” message request under 68 minutes.  LIMITS UPDATED! WhatsApp has updated the "Recipient limit". 

What does it mean? If you delete a message for everyone, but the recipient won't receive the revoke request within 13h, 8m, 16s (maybe because the phone was off), the message will **not** be revoked. ..(1/2) — WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) October 11, 2018 Misuse of the ‘Delete for Everyone’ feature could surely be a problem but WhatsApp recently dodged a bullet by patching up another, more serious vulnerability. 

The apps’ developers have fixed a vulnerability that was found at the end of August. It enables hackers to exploit the video calling features to “completely compromise WhatsApp.” As per the report, both, the Android and iOS versions of the app were affected by the bug as they use Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) for initiating a video call. 

The web version of the chat app is not affected as it uses WebRTC for the same. "Heap corruption can occur when the WhatsApp mobile application receives a malformed RTP packet," states Natalie Silvanovich, a security researcher with Google's Project Zero security research team. "This issue can occur when a WhatsApp user accepts a call from a malicious peer."  This issue was fixed on September 28 for Android and on October 3 for iPhone users. You can read more about the issue here.