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Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

privacyinternational.org

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Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#21

Post by skrebbel »

yesforwhat wrote: post #10
nutjob2 wrote: post #9

The problem here is that once you give out a number then it's public in some sense. The person you give it to can pass it on, even inadvertently. The smart thing to do is to have a public number and a private number. It makes no sense to call cabs with the same number you use to contact sources or whatever. This is easily done with dual sim phones and can be taken much further with Google Voice or other dial-in phone…

> The smart thing to do is to have a public number and a private number. What's the easiest way to do this?

Two phones.

(or a double SIM phone, but then you still risk messing up yourself by mixing data / calling from the wrong number / etc)

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#23

Post by RikNieu »

I find TrueCaller very usefull. I used to get sooo many sales and robo-calls a day that I seriously considered just getting rid of my phone. Now they get automatically blocked or I can just put them on a profile that they ring silently and hang up immediately.

I get that this can be dangerous for journalists, but shouldn't they maybe investigate alternative ways of contacting sources privately? Mobile numbers are not in any way secure or anonymous in most parts of the world anyways. Hell, here where I live you have to register with your government ID in order to get your sim card activated.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#24

Post by j605 »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #22

I have mixed feelings this. Spam calls are very much a real problem in the US as well - I get around ten per day and it's a constant annoyance.

I get zero spam calls and on most days no calls. Should we give up on privacy because US has bad legislation regarding spam calling.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#25

Post by duxup »

RikNieu wrote: post #23

I find TrueCaller very usefull. I used to get sooo many sales and robo-calls a day that I seriously considered just getting rid of my phone. Now they get automatically blocked or I can just put them on a profile that they ring silently and hang up immediately. I get that this can be dangerous for journalists, but shouldn't they maybe investigate alternative ways of contacting sources privately? Mobile numbers are not…

Mobile numbers are also often the most secure (even if not secure) / only way to contact someone in parts of the world....

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#26

Post by bdcravens »

i_feel_great wrote: post #7

Spam it by labeling phone numbers with shit data and make it useless.

This isn’t a new app - the database is several years old, and is used by many millions. Not sure how you’d get enough numbers and junk entries in there to accomplish what you’re suggesting.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#27

Post by llamataboot »

I regularly get calls on my iphone now that say (maybe: Jane Doe) under the name, and they are usually correct. Often they are recruiters, or lawyers, or people that I imagine have their phone number publicized on the web. But I'm not sure I've read where apple is getting this info (or perhaps it is a carrier thing?)

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#28

Post by vorticalbox »

zucker42 wrote: post #20
duxup wrote: post #2

This is one of my concerns ever since the first app asked for my contacts. You could be a mountain man and value your privacy.... but if you just know someone who uses tech you are exposed in any number of ways. In the US things like third-party doctrine have not aged well in the information age as just communicating with people can expose you in ways you can't ever control.

This is why I don't use WhatsApp despite the fact I know many people who use it. To use the app, you have to give access to your entire contacts list. Even if I'm okay with them having my information, I don't feel comfortable consenting for those in my contacts list who don't use WhatsApp.

That's how it know what contacts are using it and auto add to what's app if you it add a number that's using it.

It's just convenience. People don't want add users names they just want it to work.

I believe signal are/were working on a way to work out this information without actually sending to the server

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#29

Post by crummy »

llamataboot wrote: post #27

I regularly get calls on my iphone now that say (maybe: Jane Doe) under the name, and they are usually correct. Often they are recruiters, or lawyers, or people that I imagine have their phone number publicized on the web. But I'm not sure I've read where apple is getting this info (or perhaps it is a carrier thing?)

My Pixel does this, too. I assumed it was cross referencing businesses' phone numbers, the ones you can find if you search the company name on Google.

Re: Betrayed by an app she had never heard of

#30

Post by vorticalbox »

sriram_malhar wrote: post #15
tsjq wrote: post #11

once I unlist my number from truecaller website (never installed / used their mobile app), would it stop new people from adding my number to their database? ie, I unlist in May2019. i give my number to a new contact of mine in Aug2019. and they use truecaller. would that re-add my name to trucaller database, or would my number stay unlisted forever no matter how many new contacts save my number in their phones with t…

no. it does not remember you delisted, so you will be added again :(

That's a badly thought out feature, it should be blocked unless you own the number wish to add it yourself.
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