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Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

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Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#91

Post by CommanderData »

There's good reason to believe lots of western apps have back doors, if not backdoors served to countries like Iran from app stores.

Also car tech and cameras. Literally a wet dream if I worked at a three letter agency, real time surveillance of streets which is actually extremely difficult normally. Can't think of how many times I've wanted a recent picture of a street or house miles away, with 360 car cameras you can track people, see changes maybe from just minutes ago.

I don't know why these countries don't block or mandate these features are completely turned off.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#92

Post by krapp »

candiddevmike wrote: post #40
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Iraq and Gaza was an absolute joke compared to what it would take to topple the Iranian militants, militias, and government It wouldn't be a cake walk. But America could topple the government in Tehran about as easily as it did in Baghdad or, frankly, Kabul. The problem in Iraq and Afghanistan wasn't a failure to decapitate the opposing state. It was in filling the vacuum that left.

America really can't afford this right now. We spent _trillions_ on the last middle east operation.

We can totally afford it, DOGE deleted a bazillion dollars worth of waste, so we have plenty of money to burn on another crusade in the Middle East! /s

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#93

Post by bboygravity »

Saris wrote: post #9
rdrd wrote: post #7

I find the wordsmithery on Meta's statement the most interesting: “We do not track your *PRECISE* location, we don’t keep logs of who everyone is messaging and we do not track the *PERSONAL* messages people are sending one another," it added. “We do not provide *BULK* information to any government.”

If you read around their points, it sounds like they track general location, log group messages, and provide specific information on request to a government.

"'specific information request to government" == fully automated requests for literally everything all the time.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#95

Post by [deleted] »

Aloisius wrote: post #90
fakedang wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LoL exactly what I thought. Persians are extremely proud of being NOT tribal, unlike their Azeri, Afghani, Turkmeni or Tajik neighbours. Most Persians consider themselves proud inheritors of the Achaemenid and Sassanid Empires.

There are in fact tribes of Turkmen, Shahsevan, Lurs, Qashqai and various Kurds in Iran.

[deleted]

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#96

Post by chasd00 »

ty6853 wrote: post #43
gspencley wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are we toppling all these foreign governments I don't want to speak to the other foreign governments, and I think there is a LOT of room for healthy criticism of how the USA handles its foreign policy, past & present. But to answer the question directly with respects to Iran, specifically: the leadership has been repeatedly chanting "Death To America" for its 45 year history and have been actively trying to dev…

I don't pretend this is an argument at all in towards the situation in Iran, so don't quote me as justifying action or inaction there in regards to this, but it is interesting to take note North Korea actually has dozens of real nuclear weapons and the death to America rhetoric and all we seem to do is laugh at them. Of course NK has no real ability to blow up the US, but they could likely nuke or at least obliterate…

The artillery aimed at Seoul was equivalent to nuclear deterrence. Before North Korea had a nuclear bomb it was widely known that any military action against it meant the complete destruction of Seoul. The artillery in place, armed, and staffed was basically equivalent to having nukes so neither the US nor anyone else could stop them from pursuing nuclear weapons.

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#97

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mandevil wrote: post #73
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Iraq and Gaza was an absolute joke compared to what it would take to topple the Iranian militants, militias, and government It wouldn't be a cake walk. But America could topple the government in Tehran about as easily as it did in Baghdad or, frankly, Kabul. The problem in Iraq and Afghanistan wasn't a failure to decapitate the opposing state. It was in filling the vacuum that left.

Afghanistan was in the middle of a semi-active civil war when the US joined the fray, and by providing large scale air support to Northern Alliance troops on the ground, the situation changed abruptly. Iraq involved multiple US divisions of troops, which took months to get into position to launch a large scale ground invasion. Libya was in the middle of a very active civil war when the US started Operation Odyssey Da…

> All of those cases involved a whole lot of troops on the ground, which is something that I see as notably missing from any plans discussed so far

Oh absolutely. I compared it to Kabul and Baghdad (and not Libya) for a reason. There is not a mobilised resistance in Iran.

The lack of boots-on-the-ground plans is why I don’t see us teetering towards Iraq 2.0, but instead the U.S. eventually using bunker busters at Fordo and calling it a day. (To the extent we’re seeing the right recipe “liberation” rhetoric, it’s in respect of domestically deploying the military.)

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#98

Post by bevr1337 »

CommanderData wrote: post #91

There's good reason to believe lots of western apps have back doors, if not backdoors served to countries like Iran from app stores. Also car tech and cameras. Literally a wet dream if I worked at a three letter agency, real time surveillance of streets which is actually extremely difficult normally. Can't think of how many times I've wanted a recent picture of a street or house miles away, with 360 car cameras you c…

> There's good reason to believe lots of western apps have back doors

A common sentiment in this thread. My gut and practical experience both tell me this is true on some level, but how do folks distinguish tinfoil hat conspiracy from legitimate speculation?

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#99

Post by Aloisius »

reillyse wrote: post #63
gspencley wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are we toppling all these foreign governments I don't want to speak to the other foreign governments, and I think there is a LOT of room for healthy criticism of how the USA handles its foreign policy, past & present. But to answer the question directly with respects to Iran, specifically: the leadership has been repeatedly chanting "Death To America" for its 45 year history and have been actively trying to dev…

The USA created the current Iranian regime by installing a puppet and then getting butt hurt when their puppet was ousted. A real freedom for us tyranny for you situation. Then the USA created the Saddam regime in Iraq to fight the Iranian regime and that went great. And now the USA is supporting Israel to terrorize the Middle East in their name and with their bombs and that’s going swimmingly too. Top job everyone.

What puppet did the US install?

Re: Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

#100

Post by perihelions »

Saris wrote: post #9
rdrd wrote: post #7

I find the wordsmithery on Meta's statement the most interesting: “We do not track your *PRECISE* location, we don’t keep logs of who everyone is messaging and we do not track the *PERSONAL* messages people are sending one another," it added. “We do not provide *BULK* information to any government.”

If you read around their points, it sounds like they track general location, log group messages, and provide specific information on request to a government.

Meta can also just lie about it. If they were secretly granting backdoor root access to some NSA spooks, like Microsoft did with PRISM or AT&T did with 641A, most likely no one would find out, so, there'd be zero actual downside to simply lying.
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