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WhatsApp is broken, really broken

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111–120 of 137 posts

Re: WhatsApp is broken, really broken

#111
post #79

I was working on a better whatsapp api than the mess that is whatsapi, do not have enough time though. It's based in wazapp which has an actual implementation of the binary packed xmpp transfer mechanism they use. Might upload it if someone's interested, it seems broken right now though

Do it. It may be possible for someone to create a third-party client for WhatsApp instead of relying on the official version.

Look up wazapp, it's a third party client for Nokie N9

Re: WhatsApp is broken, really broken

#112
post #52

OT, but I'm intrigued by their business model. I don't know the history, but currently, the Android app is free, and it says the use of the service is free for the first year, then will be $0.99 per year after that. Meanwhile, the iOS app is $0.99 straight up. Thoughts: (a) "Free for a year, $1/year after that" seems like an awful long time to wait for a payday, but if it works, and you get lots of free users, I bet…

Even more OT, but Angry Birds is $0.99 on iOS and free (with ads) on Android to this day: https://www.google.com/search?&q=angry+birds+android+OR+... Just the nature of the different app ecosystems, really.

Could the fact that Apple pretty much force you to enter your credit card number in their system play a role ?

You used to be able to create an account without it, but not it seems impossible (or if it is, you have to do some devious thing 99% of the population could not figure out, even after solid googling).

Re: WhatsApp is broken, really broken

#113

How do apps like WhatsApp get popular? They offer inferior service in every way to builtins, and require that both parties have installed something. SMS is in every way better unless you don't have a texting plan, in that case, GTalk and iMessage are in every way better (And GTalk is even cross platform with several fairly simple XMPP clients on IOS). Who uses this shit? I encountered the same thing recently with Rai…

You account is your phone number which is a really smart thing I think. Therefore you do not have to add each of your contacts one by one. And when someone in your contact list installs WhatsApp they automatically show up in your WhatsApp contacts.

It's the quickest direct replacement for SMS.

Re: WhatsApp is broken, really broken

#114

seriously though, why does it have to send the whole contact list EVERY time? you close whatsapp remove the contact list permission, open it again, surprise, it won't work. -_-

I presume because the list of potential people who you could connect to might change. I guess they could re-scan it on a schedule but that wouldn't solve your issue and might annoy their user base who are using it because it "just works." Plus removing a permission isn't something any app supports that I am aware of. It isn't even something you're meant to be able to do on Android.

point being, it's a stupid idea. every half decent programmer would just update the diff.

Re: WhatsApp is broken, really broken

#116
It's worse than that, in iOS devices the mac address is easy to predict. For instance my phone and my wife phone have the first four bytes the same.

Example:

F0:AB:C7:11:xx:yy

So you can easily crack this by brute force without sniffing the device address at all.

Re: WhatsApp is broken, really broken

#118

It's worse than that, in iOS devices the mac address is easy to predict. For instance my phone and my wife phone have the first four bytes the same. Example: F0:AB:C7:11:xx:yy So you can easily crack this by brute force without sniffing the device address at all.

This is by design[1]. The first 3 bytes are the same for the same manufacturer. The last 3 bytes can be assigned as they wish. Apple probably assign the 4th byte as a product identifier, so would be consistent across iPhones. I wonder what the 4th byte is for other iOS devices, or if it's the same?

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizationally_Unique_Identif...

Re: WhatsApp is broken, really broken

#119

It's worse than that, in iOS devices the mac address is easy to predict. For instance my phone and my wife phone have the first four bytes the same. Example: F0:AB:C7:11:xx:yy So you can easily crack this by brute force without sniffing the device address at all.

This is by design[1]. The first 3 bytes are the same for the same manufacturer. The last 3 bytes can be assigned as they wish. Apple probably assign the 4th byte as a product identifier, so would be consistent across iPhones. I wonder what the 4th byte is for other iOS devices, or if it's the same? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizationally_Unique_Identif...

That's very unlikely: an address space of just 65K numbers would be left, which is orders of magnitude less than the number of iPhones produced.

Considering that each phone has at least two MACs (wifi and bluetooth), even the 16 millions that would be given by using the full 3 bytes look scarce.

I think that Apple has several OUIs. In fact, my iPhone's MAC doesn't have a single byte in common with the parent's.

Re: WhatsApp is broken, really broken

#120

It's worse than that, in iOS devices the mac address is easy to predict. For instance my phone and my wife phone have the first four bytes the same. Example: F0:AB:C7:11:xx:yy So you can easily crack this by brute force without sniffing the device address at all.

This is by design[1]. The first 3 bytes are the same for the same manufacturer. The last 3 bytes can be assigned as they wish. Apple probably assign the 4th byte as a product identifier, so would be consistent across iPhones. I wonder what the 4th byte is for other iOS devices, or if it's the same? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizationally_Unique_Identif...

Yes I know, but given that of the three bytes reserved for Apple, a specific device type like 4s, 4, 5, or alike, happens to have a subset of the fourth bytes combination, the space is reduced to a bit more than 16 bit, making the brute force attack absolutely feasible.

p.s. I've verified that other 4s have a different (but numerical very "near") fourth byte. It seems in the range 20-24 or alike.

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