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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

#501

Post by signatoremo »

noworriesnate wrote: post #456
whodidntante wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My only quibble with what you said is that this war was started by Iran on 10/7/23. Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, etc - these were all part of the self proclaimed "Axis of Resistance". People may disagree on the ethics of who is the "right" side, if the war was fought "fairly" and according to the "ethics of war", but you would have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to believe that Hamas and Hezbollah and Houthis were no…

What makes you think Israel is capable of having a decent relationship with its neighbors? They never have before. And they have no need to have a decent relationship because they have the US giving them enormous amounts of money and weapons. I think the best way to fix Israel is to bring in refugees from an unrelated conflict, like Sudan, and once the Sudanese have a significant minority then Israeli politics won’t…

Israel currently has good relationship with Jordan and Egypt, and since last year, Lebanon and Syria, so all of their neighbors actually.

Did you see any of ME countries helping Iran?

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

#502

Post by MoonGhost »

anticodon wrote: post #497
MoonGhost wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you summarize it, was Telegram compromised? Is there evidence of leaks from Russian soldiers' messages.

There were evidence of leaks of soldiers' messages from WhatsApp. I do not know for sure if there are leaks from Telegram, but I think that Durov was pressed for enabling backdoors for CIA when he was arrested in France. It's not like there's a registry of compromised apps in Russia that is available to public. When there were WhatsApp leaks it was widely published on Russian news channels, that's why I know about it…

> but I think that Durov was pressed for enabling backdoors for CIA when he was arrested in France.

Durov was pressed from every side from the beginning, no doubts about this. But CIA or FSB cannot demand it legally even with secret court orders. There were news that since arrest in France he started providing some info on criminals. Not sure how far did he go. But it's good to know that Whatsup is fully cooperating with governments even when they don't have to. Putting people at risk.

As for smartphones, there are so many security holes that it's impossible to secure. Many harmless applications are calling home, pictures are geo-targeted, cell towers can request info from connected phones, every update can turn OS or app into trojan. If infected it's a perfect audio and video collection device. Put together with soldiers' IDs it shows where the unit is. Add to that CIA and alike working with weakening everyone's security and getting priority access to sensitive information.

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

#503

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mousethatroared wrote: post #482
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only thing we care about is Iran's resources and support for the Palestinians What’s with the Palestinian distortion effect? We sanctioned Iran’s oil. And to the degree we consider the Palestinians, it’s in mostly ignoring their interests. (But still caring to learn about them more than the North Koreans’ or Pakistanis’.) The difference is Pyongyang has behaved rationally. It doesn’t sponsor terror groups across th…

If (Russian ally) Delhi tried a decapitating strike on (US ally, ruled by US patsies) Pakistan we'd loose our shit. Pray, when has Iran behaved irrationally? Except when trusting us, which Kissinger pointed out is really dumb.

> If (Russian ally) Delhi tried a decapitating strike on (US ally, ruled by US patsies) Pakistan we'd loose our shit

We'd be irritated if we weren't consulted, but not much more than that. India isn't a whole-hog Russian ally, they just buy weapons from Russians among others. (Increasingly, others.)

Note, for instance, how the U.S. is keeping an arms length from the ongoing Indus waters dispute. Or how the U.S. across two administrations has basically turned a blind eye to India importing Russian and Iranian oil while threatening secondary sanctions when China does the same thing.

Also, I said render-safe operation. Not a decapitating strike. The former is what Israel has so far done. Even Trump objected to the latter in Iran (so far).

> when has Iran behaved irrationally?

Continuing to arm the Houthis after they targeted U.S. warships was dumb. Hell, the entire proxy war through terrorist organisations nonsense is dumb; the proximate cause of this entire mess is Hamas and the Sinwar brothers' October 7th genius move.

None of that is a reason for America to go to war with the IRGC. But it's a good reason for treating them differently from Pyongyang and Islamabad. (Underlined, again, by the difference between a threshold nuclear state whose missile capabilities and air defences have been defanged and an actual nuclear state.)

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

#504

Post by JumpCrisscross »

woooooo wrote: post #479
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only thing we care about is Iran's resources and support for the Palestinians What’s with the Palestinian distortion effect? We sanctioned Iran’s oil. And to the degree we consider the Palestinians, it’s in mostly ignoring their interests. (But still caring to learn about them more than the North Koreans’ or Pakistanis’.) The difference is Pyongyang has behaved rationally. It doesn’t sponsor terror groups across th…

Iran has behaved pretty rationally IMO. We killed one of their top generals, unprovoked, 5 years ago. Israel bombed their embassy in Syria a year ago. Both times, they sent telegraphed, calibrated missile barrages that let them deescalate situations they didn't create. Now we're in a third instance of them being attacked. Who's the irrational party? (Edit: and in Iraq, we invaded their neighbor while loudly saying "y…

> Iran has behaved pretty rationally IMO

Tactically, in this war with Israel, and broadly since October 7th, I agree.

Strategically, by putting themselves in a position where they're sending heavy munitions to e.g. the Houthis so they can take pot shots at U.S. warships, no. That's destabilising in a way that frankly the Kims have never been.

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

#505

Post by [deleted] »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #165
pier25 wrote: post #116

Israel doesn't even need Whatsapp to be installed. The IDF's Unit 8200[1] can probably hack most phones in Iran. And if not any of the private companies selling spyware software like the NSO Group[2 and 3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_8200 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSO_Group [3] https://mepc.org/commentaries/israeli-cyber-companies-overvi...

I think that that's the excuse the current regime in Iran is using to try to prevent iranians from coordinating a coup. By "chance" the rightful crown prince (Pahlavi dynasty), an exile, is now making a comeback on social media, saying that the current iranian regime shall fail. There are talks online as to how the current regime is falling: and there are a lot of people who would be very happy to see those bearded m…

[deleted]

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

#506

Post by [deleted] »

grafmax wrote: post #496
warbaker wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Israel's defense minister warned Saturday that "Tehran will burn" if Iran continues firing missiles at Israel." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-israel-retaliatory-strikes... Don't get me wrong, Katz is a douchebag, but this was specifically a threat to retaliate in-kind of Iran continued to target arbitrary Israeli population centers. I haven't seen any evidence of Israel targeting civilians (nuclear scientists as…

> Not only would it be a horrible thing to do and of no military value, they simply don't blame the people of Iran for the IRGC's actions. So then it’s remarkable that it’s nevertheless occurring. I posted this elsewhere ITT but the parent comment is now flagged so it may be difficult to find. I post it below. > Shock, fear in Tehran after Israel bombs residential, military areas https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6…

[deleted]

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

#507

Post by mousethatroared »

ngruhn wrote: post #500
noworriesnate wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious solution is to get Israel to give up nukes in exchange for Iran stopping its nuclear program. I think that would everyone happy except the Israelis who want to murder people without repercussion.

It's crazy to me that this is peoples take away. Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas have the explicitly stated goal to annihilate Israel and its people. But Israel is the genozidal one. They're attacking military targets in Iran. Iran is bombing urban centers. I'm sure the IDF would very much prefer to only attack military targets in Gaza as well. Unfortunately, the Hamas decided to hide them under houses.

Some of us remember the Israeli AI program to maximize civilian deaths in Gaza.

We also remember the IDF "discovering" a weapons cache stored next to... an MRI.

Some of us have seen the pictures of Gaza.

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

#508

Post by bawolff »

grafmax wrote: post #485
bawolff wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fog of war is thick right now. There is plenty of reason for iran to overstate this (to e.g. try and get a rally around the flag affect to increase regime stability). [Otoh, plenty of reason for Israel to understate. Truth is the first casualty of war] We'll probably have to wait for the dust to settle before we have a good idea what was or wasn't bombed.

International news organizations reporting on this conflict incorporate accounts of residents and human rights organizations. It’s simply not true that the Iranian and Israeli governments are our only source of facts on this matter, or that the reports of attacks on residential areas are the result of “fog of war”.

Would they necessarily know either? There is a lot of confusion during war, especially during the opening stages.

And to be clear, im not saying this because its iran. I also would be cautious of e.g. initial reports during ukraine vs russia. It simply takes time for people to pick up the pieces and figure out what actually happened.

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

#509

Post by woooooo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #504
woooooo wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran has behaved pretty rationally IMO. We killed one of their top generals, unprovoked, 5 years ago. Israel bombed their embassy in Syria a year ago. Both times, they sent telegraphed, calibrated missile barrages that let them deescalate situations they didn't create. Now we're in a third instance of them being attacked. Who's the irrational party? (Edit: and in Iraq, we invaded their neighbor while loudly saying "y…

> Iran has behaved pretty rationally IMO Tactically, in this war with Israel, and broadly since October 7th, I agree. Strategically, by putting themselves in a position where they're sending heavy munitions to e.g. the Houthis so they can take pot shots at U.S. warships, no. That's destabilising in a way that frankly the Kims have never been.

They were funding the Houthis for what, 10 years before the current fracas? And then the Houthis made peace pretty quickly.

Their big picture strategic posture WAS to try and have a deal with us and normalize, but we've made it clear that we won't have that. Nurturing a bunch of proxies in the region is kind of their only option if they want to have allies.

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