Whatsapp privacy policy

[Messor]

Do you use any messaging service, and how did you decide which one if you do?

Forget about Facebook for now, users of that have given up their privacy already.
Forget about those who accepted the new WhatsApp conditions, they have too.
Forget about those who signed up for Signal or Telegram and deleted WhatsApp, most of them did not read the new Ts & Cs.

What is your advice on the subject for the average man on the street?
If it bothers you as you say, what do you do?

Kola, as I mentioned earlier in this thread I saw this coming a mile away, hence why it was so easy for me to answer Janfred on his technical questions, also you would be surprised to learn what I am qualified in.

In any case, let’s break this down to a real world scenario, so that everybody on the forum might reflect on their choices, or their coming choices, we’ll have to number them just to make it easier to read.

1: If you are afraid that people will read your messages, don’t, they won’t, nobody is going to sit in the pentagon (or everywhere else) and read the whatsapp messages of piet pompies in SA. If you are a very important and influential person in the world you are already being monitored. The sheer number of messages sent each second alone prevents the fact that anybody would read them.
Most likely people often give away much more details in phone conversations that they do messaging services, unless you are stupid enough to use facebook messenger of course.
I can already see how person “X”, not really knowing these tech stuff, is already worried about photo’s he sent or received, again, don’t, the biggest evidence is always on your phone, not the message you sent, rather the dastardly deed you already did in real life, whatever that may be :)

2: Deleting your account won’t help, the internet is not called the net for no reason, everything is connected, you cannot hide. First of all whatsapp won’t delete your data, and then when you delete your account the 100 other people that’s got your phone number will fill in the picture perfectly if they don’t ALL go over to another platform. If you have 5 friends, and you delete your account, remember whatsapp already had your number, now the 4 that are left will have you in their contact list, so groups will give away the individual that goes off the platform, immediately, your name and number is out there. The question thus is, can you remove your digital footprint once you remove your account?
The answer is no, you should never have touched tech in the first place if you want to be invisible.

3: Your service provider already have all the data you are trying to hide from whatsapp.
They have your number (obviously), they have your location, they know your device, they know all these things that you are now signing away on whatsapp, and I BET you they already sold that information to the big tech companies. So hiding from whatsapp means what to the average person, well nothing really unless you discard your phone and go back to smoke signals.

4: If you want a secure, no nonsense privacy type of messaging app, use Signal.
Will you be able to convince all your friends, and all your groups to delete their whatsapp accounts, I seriously doubt that.

Kola I can go on and on, right now I personally am still on whatsapp, I will however just ask my close friends to go over to signal. I have groups on whatsapp whom I really don’t give a crap about whoever reads it, if all the people in the groups don’t want to go over I will keep the account alive.

The gist is this, yes we are all being controlled, but me personally I have already given up on SA being a success, so I have zero worries currently about fakebook wanting to make more profit out of me, or the pentagon coming to search for me when I say something bad about Biden. The reality for the man on the ground is you’ve already exposed yourself beyond the point of no return, and secondly and most importantly, nobody gives a flying duck about your whatsapp messages, nobody here is dumb enough to message their passwords or pin codes, hence life for all of us, will go on as usual, until this country folds.

[Kola]

Kola, as I mentioned earlier in this thread I saw this coming a mile away, hence why it was so easy for me to answer Janfred on his technical questions, also you would be surprised to learn what I am qualified in.

In any case, let’s break this down to a real world scenario, so that everybody on the forum might reflect on their choices, or their coming choices, we’ll have to number them just to make it easier to read.

1: If you are afraid that people will read your messages, don’t, they won’t, nobody is going to sit in the pentagon (or everywhere else) and read the whatsapp messages of piet pompies in SA. If you are a very important and influential person in the world you are already being monitored. The sheer number of messages sent each second alone prevents the fact that anybody would read them.
Most likely people often give away much more details in phone conversations that they do messaging services, unless you are stupid enough to use facebook messenger of course.
I can already see how person “X”, not really knowing these tech stuff, is already worried about photo’s he sent or received, again, don’t, the biggest evidence is always on your phone, not the message you sent, rather the dastardly deed you already did in real life, whatever that may be :)

2: Deleting your account won’t help, the internet is not called the net for no reason, everything is connected, you cannot hide. First of all whatsapp won’t delete your data, and then when you delete your account the 100 other people that’s got your phone number will fill in the picture perfectly if they don’t ALL go over to another platform. If you have 5 friends, and you delete your account, remember whatsapp already had your number, now the 4 that are left will have you in their contact list, so groups will give away the individual that goes off the platform, immediately, your name and number is out there. The question thus is, can you remove your digital footprint once you remove your account?
The answer is no, you should never have touched tech in the first place if you want to be invisible.

3: Your service provider already have all the data you are trying to hide from whatsapp.
They have your number (obviously), they have your location, they know your device, they know all these things that you are now signing away on whatsapp, and I BET you they already sold that information to the big tech companies. So hiding from whatsapp means what to the average person, well nothing really unless you discard your phone and go back to smoke signals.

4: If you want a secure, no nonsense privacy type of messaging app, use Signal.
Will you be able to convince all your friends, and all your groups to delete their whatsapp accounts, I seriously doubt that.

Kola I can go on and on, right now I personally am still on whatsapp, I will however just ask my close friends to go over to signal. I have groups on whatsapp whom I really don’t give a crap about whoever reads it, if all the people in the groups don’t want to go over I will keep the account alive.

The gist is this, yes we are all being controlled, but me personally I have already given up on SA being a success, so I have zero worries currently about fakebook wanting to make more profit out of me, or the pentagon coming to search for me when I say something bad about Biden. The reality for the man on the ground is you’ve already exposed yourself beyond the point of no return, and secondly and most importantly, nobody gives a flying duck about your whatsapp messages, nobody here is dumb enough to message their passwords or pin codes, hence life for all of us, will go on as usual, until this country folds.

Thanks for the reply.

Also read your earlier posts.

Agree on what you said.
A lot of knee jerking happening without understanding.

A few weeks from now a lot of people who installed Telegram and told their friends about it on Facebook will be back, and life will go on.

[Gleock]

I agree with you, but with all the data breaches we have seen over the years, we put our trust in someone’s promise of privacy.
Is your private message more private than the rather private information Experian leaked very recently, where a number of us could have been affected?
Information they had a duty to protect, which they committed to protect.

With WhatsApp we now have the choice, accept that they use us as product, or stop using them (although I believe it is just them ticking the boxes on information they have been mining for some time already).

Also, is there proof that they intercepted private messages between friends?
(not saying it does not happen, I do not know)

What about a ‘friend’ making a screenshot and next thing you are famous, as we have seen so often with stupid messages/videos.
You might be secure, are all your friends?

There is the old story about a secret existing between 3 people, 2 of them are dead.

I get what you are saying, but all the breaches you mentioned are the result of crimes, even your friend screenshotting and distributing your messages.

You wrong in saying we have a choice, we have a choice with Google, whatsapp is saying fit in or fuck off.

This is no longer just about targeted advertising, this is about building cyber profiles of peoples lives.
The police need to convince a judge before they ping your phone and check your call history, whatsapp is now obtaining this information by coercion.

[Kola]

I get what you are saying, but all the breaches you mentioned are the result of crimes, even your friend screenshotting and distributing your messages.

You wrong in saying we have a choice, we have a choice with Google, whatsapp is saying fit in or fuck off.

This is no longer just about targeted advertising, this is about building cyber profiles of peoples lives.
The police need to convince a judge before they ping your phone and check your call history, whatsapp is now obtaining this information by coercion.

FIFO is also a choice, whether we like it or not, it is a YES/NO choice.
Many companies change their terms and conditions after we accepted the version we did, it is their obligation to inform us, ours to accept or opt out.

What is bad is that they are now ‘asking’ consent for data they have been mining for years because they have to.

I do not like Facebook, WhatsApp and many of the others, it is up to me to read the terms and decide what I use or not.

It is a bit of a circular discussion, in Afrikaans ‘soos ‘n passer, al om een gat’.

[Meteor]

Tin Hat Time

Did the pic of the Thulsie twins posing with their paintball guns make it easier to get a search warrant?

Have any of the red flag attacks in the US been carried out with social media information?

How long before Whatsapp makes info available to law enforcement in exchange for more power? How much is there to gain if Big Tec have law enforcement on a line? Will they barter us off if they don't like our outlook?

[Meteor]

So what happened with the update? As I remember it the due date was 8 Feb but it seems Whatsapp updated 1 Feb.

Is the 1 Feb update the one I wanted to avoid?

[Gleock]

So what happened with the update? As I remember it the due date was 8 Feb but it seems Whatsapp updated 1 Feb.

Is the 1 Feb update the one I wanted to avoid?

Zuc Zuc realised that we are not his puppets and whatsapp is not the only messaging platform available.
The invasion of privacy was put on hold due to "misinformation".

[Meteor]

Zuc Zuc realised that we are not his puppets and whatsapp is not the only messaging platform available.
The invasion of privacy was put on hold due to "misinformation".

I sincerely hope so because I still have Whapsap but I do not remember allowing the update- UNLESS I did it while sleepwalking, in which case I will be highly disappointed in myself.

[A-R]

I sincerely hope so because I still have Whapsap but I do not remember allowing the update- UNLESS I did it while sleepwalking, in which case I will be highly disappointed in myself.

The policy change was postponed to a later date. He will try his luck with the sheeple again.

[Meteor]

Ja Sien-A-R van Rensburg.

Whatsapp will continue with its privacy changes. The article says they talked to some people and they addressed the issues but nothing else.
The article does not mention any changes to the privacy policy itself stating users are 'misinformed about the update'.

They mention that Telegram "do not offer end-to-end encryption by default".

https://mybroadband.co.za/news/secur...rce=newsletter