Whatsapp has silently rolled out an update to improve the “Delete for Everyone” feature to block revoke requests for some users. Whatsapp also recently rolled out an update to the Whatsapp for Android app that enables a user to delete a message sent by mistake to someone within a time frame of 4096 seconds which is more than the original time frame of just 7 minutes.
However, the 4096 second was reportedly exploited by some users by using a modded version of Whatsapp to delete messages that were more than three years old. The modded version also enables not just the sender but everybody else to delete the messages sent.
To fix these exploits, the instant messaging app has released an update with a “block revoke request “ feature. Apart from that, Whatsapp has also updated its iOS app to increase the time frame of the “Delete for Everyone” feature for iOS users to one hour, eight minutes and sixteen seconds.
As per a report by WABetaInfo, Whatsapp has updated the algorithm to block the revoke request. After the update, if the algorithm receives a revoke request, it will first check its database for a message with the same ID, and then check whether the time frame is less than 24 hours when the message was first sent and only then allow deletion of the particular message using the previously generated ID. This new feature will only allow deletion of messages sent within the stipulated time frame and will not allow any modded version of Whatsapp to extend the time limit by any means.
Meanwhile, Whatsapp for iPhone has also been upgraded to version 2.18.31 to increase the time limit of “Delete for Everyone” feature to 1 hour, 8 minutes and 16 seconds. This new feature can be used for temporary conversations in Whatsapp just like other messaging apps that allow temporary conversations.
Apple iOS users can visit the Apple App Store to update their Whatsapp to the latest version, that also brings some minor bug fixes and security updates.
