Tracking friends and strangers using WhatsApp • Hacker News Board

Re: Tracking friends and strangers using WhatsApp

#111

Post by ohmicmann » Tue, Oct 10, 2017, 2:31 AM UTC

anonu wrote: post #74

Havoc wrote: post #2

I suspect a fairly small percentage of users is active enough that you get usable hourly data.

I think there's more than 1.3 billion users on WhatsApp - its massive - I am personally checking it constantly (> once an hour) It's certainly a more popular app outside of the USA. They initially gained traction because they were willing to make apps for things other than iphones and androids - which gave them a huge following in the developing world where people may still use 10+ year old candy bars.

This is so true. Where I live most of people started using Whatsapp on old Nokia phones running SymbianOS. It was one of the few decent apps available.

Re: Tracking friends and strangers using WhatsApp

#112

Post by sampo » Tue, Oct 10, 2017, 2:34 AM UTC

rconti wrote: post #30

raarts wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on the country. In the US, people still tend to text a lot, but in most of Europe, Whatsapp totally replaced texting.

Is this because of their still-utterly-broken roaming model? (supposedly to be remedied soon)

It is true that international texting is expensive in Europe, whereas inter-state texting is free in US. But while Americans usually have circles of friends spread over several states, an international circle of friends is less common in Europe.

I think the reason is that a typical cell phone plan in Europe was like 5€ per month, plus 0.07 cents per text (or call minute). Whereas typical American plan was $50 month, but unlimited free text and calls. So people who text lot didn't want to pay even for the tiny amounts for individual text messages, and migrated to using apps.

The all-inclusive fixed price monthly plans are only now getting more popular in Europe.

Re: Tracking friends and strangers using WhatsApp

#113

Post by cassowary » Tue, Oct 10, 2017, 2:48 AM UTC

jeromegv wrote: post #86

gsich wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatsapp doesn't have a read receipt either. Just because the message was displayed, doesn't mean it was read.

You are mistaken. They do make a distinction between actually read and just delivered.

The point was that being displayed on my screen doesn't mean I read it. For instance, I have a problem where sometimes I'll log in to my phone and an app will be active. I don't want that app; I need to do a bank transaction. But now someone thinks their message has been read, when so far from reading it I don't even know it exists! It was just displayed on my screen for half a moment when my eyes and my attention was somewhere else. (Another common problem I have is when I send a message, and then they reply so fast that the message arrives at about the same time as I'm trying to return to the homescreen to ensure I get a notification when the message arrives. Well unfortunately the message arrived first, got marked as read and no notification exists. After twenty minutes I realise what happens but maybe I've already offended someone by "reading" their message and ignoring it.)

Delivered vs read is only accurate if you have an eye tracker.

Re: Tracking friends and strangers using WhatsApp

#114

Post by cl289 » Tue, Oct 10, 2017, 3:05 AM UTC

Just to clarify as a non-user: there's an online status, and a 'last seen' data point, and both can be queried by any user for any user given their telephone number, as often as the querying party likes? And the online status is when the app is open on the phone?

Re: Tracking friends and strangers using WhatsApp

#115

Post by 100ideas » Tue, Oct 10, 2017, 3:14 AM UTC

polote wrote: post #25

tcmb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody has to stop using WhatsApp, the scenario described in the article can be prevented simply by changing the app's privacy settings.

Wrong, if you deactivate the feature 'last seen at' it doesn't change anything because you can still get the same information with the feature 'is online now' and this feature can't be deactivated

Can't a user just remain logged-in on a second device 24/7?

Re: Tracking friends and strangers using WhatsApp

#116

Post by netsharc » Tue, Oct 10, 2017, 3:34 AM UTC

polote wrote: post #25

tcmb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody has to stop using WhatsApp, the scenario described in the article can be prevented simply by changing the app's privacy settings.

Wrong, if you deactivate the feature 'last seen at' it doesn't change anything because you can still get the same information with the feature 'is online now' and this feature can't be deactivated

Did he mean change it client-side, or if WhatsApp the company changes this setting to allow more privacy (allow users to hide their status).

Re: Tracking friends and strangers using WhatsApp

#117

Post by kowdermeister » Tue, Oct 10, 2017, 5:34 AM UTC

raarts wrote: post #13

polote wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, whatsapp is not like Tinder or Facebook you don't open it every 2 minutes to check if there is something new.

That depends on the country. In the US, people still tend to text a lot, but in most of Europe, Whatsapp totally replaced texting.

I never noticed it I don't know anybody at the company using it plus nobody ever asked my why I'm not on WhatsApp.

Re: Tracking friends and strangers using WhatsApp

#118

Post by tomfitz » Tue, Oct 10, 2017, 5:46 AM UTC

squigg wrote: post #16

I loved this article. It is beautifully written, given both the hacking curiosity on display as well as the real-world privacy impact it demonstrates. Most of my family use whats-app and would be mortified if they actually understood most of this. Not saying they would stop using it, as the trade-off is a great social app, but it would make them think more broadly about how the world is changing.

The author has a few well written pieces. These two are hilarious: https://robertheaton.com/2014/10/25/tales-from-a-san-francis...

https://robertheaton.com/2014/07/14/getting-nothing-done-a-m...

Re: Tracking friends and strangers using WhatsApp

#119

Post by itsyogesh » Tue, Oct 10, 2017, 6:09 AM UTC

cl289 wrote: post #114

Just to clarify as a non-user: there's an online status, and a 'last seen' data point, and both can be queried by any user for any user given their telephone number, as often as the querying party likes? And the online status is when the app is open on the phone?

AFAIK If you have them in your contacts and they haven't blocked you, you can access both those data points. If they have disabled last seen, you can still get the the 'online' and 'typing' status.

Re: Tracking friends and strangers using WhatsApp

#120

Post by ycombinete » Tue, Oct 10, 2017, 6:13 AM UTC

anilakar wrote: post #88

antirez wrote: post #34

A few weeks ago there was a similar discussion, and I commented the following: If you think there is no problem, you are wrong. The blog post does not show all the information leaks that this implies. Example: I can modify the script to monitor all the numbers I've in my phone, so that based on the online/offline status in a few weeks I can be able to guess who is having conversations together, discovering cheatings,…

Once I hacked together a similar program to log the terminal activity of fellow students on the university UNIX and Linux servers: https://github.com/andyn/actspy/blob/master/actspy.c The main objective, however, was not to stalk innocent users but to catch an anonymous IRC troll who was using an identless shell server in order to hide their real account name. Every time the troll wrote to IRC, the activity logger pr…

Please finish this story.