Alternatives to get off the whatsapp crack-pipe, say NO to whatsapp!

What’s up with Facebook’s ad plans for WhatsApp?
This article from an IT site for business people shows that company technology specialists are already warning professionals to stay off WhatsApp for fear of Facebook’s use of tracking tools to follow employees using this messenger service. Perhaps even ordinary users should be warned in the same way of their potential loss of privacy.

Just a little side-step to the discussion. Not about app, but about friends…
Most people fear to leave Whatsapp because “Everybody is there…”
I recently said farewell to whatsapp. Sending a last message via whatsapp to all people I ever wrote to, that I would use alternatives from now on…
Result:
Good friends joined me at the new messenger. Inactive Friends simple didn´t follow to the new messenger. Good way to clean up the “dead” contacts…

9 Likes

Well done, @Roger
The problem is the family :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Yeah, you gotta make 'em an offer they can’t refuse :horse:

4 Likes

https://www.zdnet.com/article/russia-unbans-telegram/

I want to leave WhatsApp, but to be honest it’s not that easy. Some groups (I hate them) but some of them are very helpful and handy. For example, we have a tennis chat with some people that I don’t known well. We can cancel the training if the teacher is sick, we can ask some questions, we move the time if it fits better and so on. Those things are very handy and I’m not going to tell everyone to move to an other app.

An other point of view is, I don’t want to offend people if I move to an other app. I mean, for the other person it is a problem that I’m not on WhatsApp anymore. They have to change something specially because I decided to move away. So this could offend them.

So what should I do.

2 Likes

Yes, I read today…but I don’t know if it’s positive or less…

Who is the one who should be ashamed ?

The one who asks the other to move from a very bad app for privacy to a respectful app,

or the one who forces the other to stay on a very bad app ?

I agree, it’s easy to say this basic thing but it stays true :slight_smile:

4 Likes

What a bad surprise. Session has a Google Firebase Analytics tracker.

Yeah, that is true, the requirement of a phone number is the weak spot of Signal (unlike e.g. Threema or Riot). Good to know that they’re working on it.
Personally, it is alright for me, since after all I want to use a phone that actually has a phone number, but I can understand that some people have problems with that sort of sign-up procedure.

At least – since it’s properly encrypted – only metadata can be tracked and that will happen anyway via Wifi, cells etc.
(unless of course you’re using a VPN)

In the end you have to decide for yourself what fits you and what doesn’t based on your own requirements.
Proper end-to-end encryption messanging however should be a high ranked requirement on everybody’s list!
And that’s where Telegram (which was the original starting point of this discussion) fails.

2 Likes

@kalman I believe the latest session update has no more trackers included.

1 Like

True!!! :slight_smile:
Screenshot_20200621-143826_Browser|281x500

2 Likes

When I left Whatsapp I knew, I would loose a few contacts… which were “dead” before…
The main problem where my parents. Fortunately they live closeby. The day after I quit Whatsapp I directly drove to them and helped installing my favourite messenger. It was good that I had done so. Quote of my father: “That would have confused me”.
Experience of two weeks Whatsapp-Absence: Family moved to my favourite messenger. Good friends did so, too. Some didn´t. Some returned to email. Some re-started giving me a call (Oh… a voice :smile:)
I also was afraid, what “People would think”. After all, it is MY telephone. I can do with it what I want…
Problem are the Whatsapp-groups at sports… But most of the trainers simply copy and paste the messages into another messenger… “Not that difficult” they said…

7 Likes

What is your favourite messenger then?

So far my favourite messenger is Signal…

3 Likes

My favourite messenger is the one I propose here: Best All In One Messenger: Voice Calls, Video Facetime, Send Text & Attachments

Any Android devs in here want to make it a reality?

I also use Signal everyday…

2 Likes

What about the std sms app? People using the pre-installed sms app? Anyone using silence?

1 Like

I’m using silence since years

1 Like

Interresting
Maximator: European signals intelligence cooperation, from a Dutch perspective

This article is first to report on the secret European five-partner sigint alliance Maximator that started in the late 1970s. It discloses the name Maximator and provides documentary evidence. The five members of this European alliance are Denmark Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, and France. The cooperation involves both signals analysis and crypto analysis. The Maximator alliance has remained secret for almost fifty years, in contrast to its Anglo-Saxon Five-Eyes counterpart. The existence of this European sigint alliance gives a novel perspective on western sigint collaborations in the late twentieth century.

The article explains and illustrates, with relatively much attention for the cryptographic details, how the five Maximator participants strengthened their effectiveness via the information about rigged cryptographic devices that its German partner provided, via the joint U.S.-German ownership and control of the Swiss producer Crypto AG of cryptographic devices.

  1. Introduction

The post-Second World War signals intelligence (SIGINT) cooperation between five Anglo-Saxon countries – Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the United States – is well-documented.1 This alliance is often called Five Eyes and is based on the 1946 UKUSA Agreement. What is not publicly known so far is that there is a second, parallel, western signals intelligence alliance, namely in north-western Europe, also with five members. It has existed since 1976 and is called Maximator. It comprises Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands and is still active today.

The Maximator alliance deepens our understanding of the recently-revealed operation Thesaurus/Rubicon: the joint CIA-BND ownership and control of the Swiss manufacturer of cryptographic equipment Crypto AG, from 1970 to 1993.2 Crucial information about the inner workings (and weaknesses) of cryptographic devices sold by Crypto AG (and by other companies) were distributed within the Maximator network. This allowed the participants to decrypt intercepted messages from the more than one hundred countries that had bought compromised devices from the 1970s onwards.

:point_right:t3: Read more:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02684527.2020.1743538

#Maximator #SIGINT #eu #cia #bnd #FiveEyes
:satellite:@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
:satellite:@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
:satellite:@NoGoolag
:satellite:@BlackBox

4 Likes