WhatsAPI

Interface to WhatsApp Messenger

####Note June 18th, 2013####

Big overhaul in the code. Big thanks to:

Ali Hubail and
Ahmed Moh'd for making this project happen (and adding me as a member)
Jannik Vogel for helping me retrieve the latest WhatsApp token, someone should write a book about it some day..
Tarek Galal for providing the latest WhatsApp functionality in yowsup
Atans and
Jonathan Williamson for additional fixes

What is WhatsApp?

“WhatsApp Messenger is a cross-platform mobile messenger that replaces SMS and works through the existing internet data plan of your device. WhatsApp is available for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone, Nokia Symbian60 & S40 phones. Because WhatsApp Messenger uses the same internet data plan that you use for email and web browsing, there is no cost to message and stay in touch with your friends.”

Late 2011 numbers: 1 billion messages per day, ~20 million users.

Modified XMPP

WhatsApp uses some sort of customized XMPP server, named internally as FunXMPP, which is basically some extended proprietary version.

Login procedure

Much like XMPP, WhatsApp uses JID (jabber id) and password to successfully login to the service. The password is generated by the server and received upon registration.

The JID is a concatenation between your country’s code and mobile number.

Initial login uses Digest Access Authentication.

Message sending

Messages are basically sent as TCP packets, following WhatsApp’s own format (unlike what’s defined in XMPP RFCs).

Messages are application level encrypted using RC4 keystreams

Multimedia Message sending

Photos, Videos and Audio files shared with WhatsApp contacts are HTTP-uploaded to a server before being sent to the recipient(s) along with Base64 thumbnail of media file (if applicable) along with the generated HTTP link as the message body.

FAQ

What’s with the hex chars floating all over the code?

Mostly WhatsApp’s proprietary control chars/commands, or formatted data according to their server’s specifications, stored in predefined dictionaries within the clients.
What’s your future development plans?

We don’t have any.
Would it run over the web?

We’ve tested a slightly-modified version on top of Tornado Web Server and worked like a charm, however, building a chat client is a bit tricky, do your research.
Can I receive chats?

Indeed, using the same socket-receiving mechanism. But you have to parse the incoming data. Parsing functions aren’t included in this release, maybe in the next one?
I think the code is messy.

It’s working.
How can I obtain my password?

Register a number using WhatsAPI or intercept your phone's password using MissVenom

NOTES

This proof of concept is extensible to contain every feature that make a fully-fledged client, similar to the official ones, actually could be even better.
During the two weeks of analysis of service mechanisms, we stumbled upon serious design and security flaws (they fixed some of them since 2011). For a company with such massive user base, we expected better practises and engineering.

License

MIT - refer to the source code for the extra line.

Venomous

Team of Bahraini Developers.

Ahmed Moh'd (fb.com/ahmed.mhd) and Ali Hubail (@hubail) contributed to this release.

thoscut / WhatsAPI