[smc-discuss] Facebook and Google spy on you

[Anivar Aravind]

 Open Whisper Systems partners with WhatsApp to provide end-to-end
encryption

https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp/


A comment on that post


The client sees the data. The app sees the data since the app does the
encryption. If they gather all they need, keywords, patterns, location data
etc from the message at the app level and send it to whatsapp server,
whatsapp can claim that their servers cannot see your messages in the
literal sense, but they pretty much are not giving up anything. They simply
moved their user data collection from server to the app.

If you text "got some new lingerie at macy's" They can still profile you as
a female, probably 25-35 age group in XXX city, income likely at 40 - 80 K
unmarried, shops at macys or equivalent.

If your next text is "cost me 200$" your income will be revised from 40-80
to 60 - 100 K

That is big data. Continuously learning about a users interests by their
messages. After a year they will know more about you more than your husband
or friend does.

All this so that they can sell the same to advertisers. Your profile data
is passed along btw sites as tracking cookies and everyone knows to show
you lingerie ads instead of golf gear.

Now they identify you with a number instead of a name. Example user no
xxxxx instead of sylvie. Now they can claim we only collect anonymized
data. But remember they can clearly tie you to different machines you use
and places you usually are at.

This is why whatsapp was bought for 20 billion dollars. For the 1 billion
messages sent per month that lest them study their usage patterns.
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