The real problem with using WhatsApp
@tipsfortelegram💡Tip 8:
❓The real problem with using WhatsApp
❗️ This article might be a little longer than others and not directly relate to Telegram but is still an important topic for Telegram.
WhatsApp is the 🏆number one messaging app. Billions of users have it on their phone.
But since 💰Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014, critics warn about their questionable 👁🗨privacy.
Yes, WhatsApp implemented an 🔐end-to-end encryption for their chats in 2016. 🎉Finally.
Surely, this is at least a first step of secure and private messaging. Neither WhatsApp nor Facebook or any other person is able to 🕵read your messages (at least that's what they say, but nobody can guarantee and prove it since their app in not open-source☠). This article will not question whether or not WhatsApp has implemented a back-door because of some force by the FBI, NSA, or other agencies.
UPDATE:
It truly has been found out that WhatsApp's 🔓encyption is not working properly and that they built in a backdoor on purpose in order to spy on their users.😱👎🏼
WhatsApp users have been betrayed the second time in a few months (first time Oct. 2016: sharing data with Facebook (They said in 2013 that they would never do this)).
I personally think todays incident is another setback for the company and will make users mistrust the app even more.
But it is quiet impressive how users believe that Facebook is not able to get 💲valuable data by you using WhatsApp.
It is a fact that there are no people sitting behind desktops who 🔍read through the boring chats you have with some of your friends. This would not make sense.
Instead, the so called "meta-data" is more valuable for companies like WhatsApp.
Meta-data includes for example information about the sender and the recipient of a message and the time when they were send or read😱.
Now why is this meta-data so dangerous?
Big companies use special 💻computer algorithms in order to create complex profiles of each user. This information will be 💾stored on 🇱🇷US servers forever and will be more valuable in the future with every new message you send.
Companies make money out of this meta-data, for example by selling it to third-party ad agencies. Unlike the common 📢stereotype, the message text itself is not that valuable for companies as the meta-data is!
Now if you 🤔don't believe this, check out this experiment about what meta-data tells about you.
If you are a Facebook user, try "ApplyMagicSauce" by the 🌆university of Cambridge to see what the Facebook company is able to tell about your characterization. It does it by simply checking your PUBLIC Facebook profile and 📈analyzing your liked posts (the more you are active on fb and give articles a 👍🏼"thumb up", the better the results will be).
Back to the meta-data topic: of course, nearly most of the messaging companies 📝collect meta-data. But if you had the choice to share this valuable information of yourself with a big company making profit out of its user or a small one that actually says that they will not share/store your information or make money out of it, everyone would rather pick the small provider.
Another thing that concerns not only WhatsApp:
Did you know that Google is able to collect this valuable meta-data too if you are using an Android device?😧
That's because WhatsApp and almost every single other application uses Google notifications (GCM). This provides the possibility for the app to ✅check for new notifications in the background. By using GCM, the user instantly gets a 📲notification, for example when you get a message. Without this service, you would have to open the app first to allow it to check for notifications.
Telegram is one of the only apps that uses its own custom notification system for Android🎉.
Telegram built a 🆒custom notification service that is independent from Google. This "Keep-alive" service is activated by default. This way, 🤑nosy Google will not be able to track you down.
Unfortunately, some special ⚡️boost/battery optimizing-applications that you might have installed on your phone will stop Telegram's notification service to work properly. In this case, you have to set Telegram to the White-List in those "battery optimizing" apps (see the FAQ for more information).
🔚Coming to an end, I want to tell you that you are probably never able to surf on the Internet without leaving some information about yourself. But you can at least minimize that by setting a sign for more Internet privacy (for example: 👌🏼don't buy/use products by monopole companies or companies that don't care about your privacy).
I truly believe that this major privacy debate will be even more relevant in the 🔮future and we should not look away. Because otherwise, the 🚶🏼normal human being will be less and less worthy in a society where companies look for making 💲profits out of everything, including you.