Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

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Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

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"Whatsapp Contacts Bypasser": Open a chat in Whatsapp using only a phone number! (github.com)

submitted 1 month ago by pantherina@feddit.org to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Whatsapp is privacy invasive, and we likely know that even when using E2EE, this is possible due to metadata tracking.

An easy way to avoid one creepy thing, contact scanning and the creation of "who knows whom" social nets, is to not grant apps permission to your contacts!

But this is not easy, as apps often enforce this, just as they do with

embedded cameras instead of using the system camera
embedded galleries instead of the 2 available portals (but Google will soon forbid that)
asking for unneeded permissions

Only GrapheneOS also allows blocking these permissions

sensors
internet
loading code from memory i.e. from the internet (why would they do that? Is there something they want to hide?)
debugging their own code to spy on the system behavior

But this app can help everyone on any Android to at least fix this :)

all 12 comments

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[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/dev.theolm.wwc/

Does something similar.

[–] pantherina@feddit.org 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Haha that one. It is 150MB in size, for such a simple app. Pretty damn crazy

[–] asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

150MB???

[–] pantherina@feddit.org 1 points 1 month ago

Strange, maybe android messed something up? The release on F-Droid is 14MB, but installed it was 150MB for me.

Still bigger 😛

[–] Goldmaster@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago

Or just use Signal which already does this.

[–] activist@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago

you don’t need a 150mb app for it, just type wa.me/phonenumber to your browser lol

[–] richardisaguy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

can't you already do that? by clicking on the "new chat button" and pasting the phone number i can start the chat without adding to contacts; at least on whatsapp business that works

[–] Blaze@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago

There is also !privacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com where you can crosspost

[–] wrekone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Whatsapp is terrible. Not trying to diss you for using it. Do what works for you. I just don't understand the appeal with all of the alternatives.

[–] pantherina@feddit.org 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I dont use it

I advertise an app that makes using it less invasive

Think outside your own reality XD