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Univ. of New Haven Cyber Lab: WhatsApp Collects Phone Numbers, Call Duration, and More

Posted by timothy on from the mere-metadata dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A recent network forensic examination of popular messaging service WhatsApp at the University of New Haven's Cyber Forensics Research & Education Group is offering new details on the data that can be collected from the app's network from its new calling feature: such as phone numbers and phone call duration, and highlights areas for future research and study. The researchers provided an outline of the WhatsApp messaging protocol from a networking perspective, making it possible to explore and study WhatsApp network communications. (Also noted at The Register.)

2 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Intelligence Collection by transfire · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Probably because Facebook is part of the Israeli intelligence apparatus. This is the same data collected by Amdocs, the Israeli company that handles virtually all records for land lines (http://www.tomflocco.com/fs/HouseHidesIsraeliTelSpying.htm)

  2. My Whatsapp status is permananently set to... by Assoluto · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...Being tracked by Zuk

    I'm generally pretty privacy concious (use a VPN for all browsing, self destructing cookies, fake accounts everywhere, no account for Facebook, Twitter, etc). However, with your phone it's impossible to avoid being tracked by Google and Facebook. I have no mobile data plan and keep my Wifi off most of the time, but I still suspect they get a lot of data on me.

    Windows has gone in the same direction and it's impossible to use that without being tracked by Microsoft. Linux is the only remaining option for anyone with concerns about privacy. Sadly, most people don't have any concerns about privacy and don't realise how they can be harmed and exploited through their data.

    I think the privacy war is over, and we lost.