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WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones

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Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones

#311
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit of a pathetic policy if you ask me. In my opinion a country who permits this type of behaviour shouldn't be shielded from the ensuing negative press. If anything it might encourage otherwise unaware citizens to put pressure on the government to do something about it.

I hear you. I agree with your second sentence. But I'm trying to protect HN, not Israel or anyone else. This place is fragile, and when people bring the fires of the world here, it can only take so much. I wouldn't call that kind of title edit (taking out a country name) a policy. We have an ad hoc bag of tricks and sometimes we use one and sometimes another, depending on what feels needed. Do I know how unsatisfying…

Ack. I can see it's a tricky balance to maintain.

Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones

#312
post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many millions of users would be excluded if they chose that path, and are their controlling shareholders okay with that reduction of active users?

I suspect we'll never know for sure, but we can guess. ~73% of users apparently use Android to access WhatsApp [1]. As of the start of 2018, WhatsApp had 1.3 billion monthly users [2]. Less than 0.3% of Android users globally use an incompatible API level. If we assume this applies equally to the WhatsApp userbase (and old-Android users are represented with the same proportion in the active monthly users figure) and…

I agree with your point, given that data.

Re: WhatsApp voice calls were used to inject spyware on phones

#313
post #274

What about Wechat? There are lots of seemingly pretty girls trying to voice or video call these days. Either I'm suddenly rich in their eyes or there's something fishy going on.

Name a chat app and I can provide a link or comment from someone saying the same thing about pretty scam girls. Facebook, Whatspp, Gmail, Kik, Snapchat, Instagram, and even BBSes, AOL, IRC etc...

What I saw on FB is automatic replies from bots. What I know from Skype are african boys who try to earn their next beer in an internet cafe by acting they would be a girl. I can confirm it's all not that.
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