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Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices

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141–150 of 560 posts

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

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will this result in bloody civil war like in Iraq and minimal dysfunctional central government after?

What’s the alternative? Live under the delusional islamic theocratic dictatorship forever? If you think the islamic republic can be replaced through peaceful protests you have another thing coming, they have already killed thousands of protestors and they have no problem killing because they actually believe they are doing god’s work and the protestors are infidels that deserve to die. I take my chances for a probabl…

If ayatollah gets nuke regime becomes forever like in North Korea. And Israel may suffer first because nuke strike is the only chance for Iran right now. Hope they don't have it and ayatollah goes to Moscow.

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

#142

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.

America can ALWAYS afford war.

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

#143
post #87
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.”

"we don’t keep logs of who EVERYONE is messaging" just selected people then?

Yep, they confirm it here: https://faq.whatsapp.com/444002211197967/?locale=en_US

"This may include information about how some users interact with others on our service."

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

#144
post #118
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the diaspora seems to overwhelmingly do so, at least.

The diaspora is a very self-filtered subset though. Say, the Russian diaspora overwhelmingly opposes the Russia's aggression in Ukraine, while the population within Russia is mostly indifferent enough, and often supports it. (Note that all the Russian troops in Ukraine are not taken by military draft, but went to war voluntarily, for a generous fee, or in exchange for release from prison.)

Did they release the conscripts from 2023? Or are you assuming they've all died by now?

It's true that new soldiers are not conscripts, but I'd assume there's still some survivors from the earlier mobilisation and as far as I know once you're in, you're in, until death, incapacity or the war ending.

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

#145
post #53

There's another country that asked its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices too. That's right, I'm talking about Venezuela, the country led by Nicolás Maduro, a dictator. This immediately raised red flags for me.

Maybe Mark should just open up his pocketbook for Maduro and the Iatola like he did for Trump.

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

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re being dramatic. We installed the Shah [EDIT: as an autocrat] with the ‘53 coup [1]. That was our original sin. But the Islamic Republic wasn’t an American creation. Neither was Saddam’s Iraq or the Mujahideen or Al Qaeda. We variously facilitated, opposed and ignored these elements, mostly the last. Ignoring the Soviet history in the region, together with the fact that Iranians aren’t automatons, but human be…

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi became Shah of the Imperial State of Iran in 1941, succeeding his father after the British forced him out. I'm unsure as to how the US installed him in 1953. He had been Shah for 11 years.

> Mohammad Reza Pahlavi became Shah of the Imperial State of Iran in 1941

Sorry, you’re correct. We installed him as an autocrat in ‘53.

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

#147
> WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption, meaning a service provider in the middle can’t read a message.

I wish this meme that "whatsapp is secure because it uses e2e encryption" would die.

Why does it matter if the messages are e2e encrypted if the messages are managed on the two ends of the channel by a closed source binary that does who-knows-what.

The whatsapp app itself sees the clear text message. What it does with that information... or what "metadata" it extracts to send to their servers.. who knows.

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

#148
post #50
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're under the CLOUD Act, doesn't matter what their policies say.

Aren’t groups end-end encrypted still, with key exchange on joining groups?

Does the WhatsApp program generate and store/mange the private keys? If so, it would be possible for the program to send private keys on request, effectively backdooring the endpoint. Such an arrangement would allow Meta to put its hand on it heart and truthfully say it is end-to-end encrypted (on the network), whilst still providing a way around it.

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

#149
post #114
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.”

> we don’t keep logs of who everyone is messaging Surely they must, how else are the messages… you know… available when you use the app?

I'm not saying I believe their statement, but in principle they could be storing messages indexed by recipient and have the sender id be part of the encrypted content? Then you can drop messages in each user's inbox as they arrive, from which the user's app can read, but not have stored enough information to retroactively query "Show me everyone Alice has talked to"?

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

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re being dramatic. We installed the Shah [EDIT: as an autocrat] with the ‘53 coup [1]. That was our original sin. But the Islamic Republic wasn’t an American creation. Neither was Saddam’s Iraq or the Mujahideen or Al Qaeda. We variously facilitated, opposed and ignored these elements, mostly the last. Ignoring the Soviet history in the region, together with the fact that Iranians aren’t automatons, but human be…

I like this new trend of defending American Imperialism by claiming that the other side doesn’t recognize the human beingness of the Other.

> new trend of defending American Imperialism by claiming that the other side doesn’t recognize the human beingness of the Other

It’s not defending or supporting but pointing out that not every foreign policy choice made on the planet is a result of our actions. There is a mixture of culpability, credit and thus obligation to fix things.

And I’m not going off on a humanistic arc. The criticism is in line with that of Big Man historical models, or conspiratorial ones involving all-knowing shadow governments. These models are simpler to apply than reality, which involves imperfect (and changing) actors acting through the fogs of war and history.

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