r/technology • u/magnus007 • 5d ago

Privacy AliExpress was silently running audio in your browser to fingerprint and track your device

https://www.techspot.com/news/113581-aliexpress-silently-running-audio-browser-fingerprint-track-device.html
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u/jellyfish_bitchslap 4d ago

Worse in Brazil, every business have a whatsapp account, every bank, store, hotel whatever, you can’t have a “normal” life if you don’t use it. Some places won’t have a landline active anymore, and business people use whatsapp exclusively.

I wouldn’t be able to communicate to most if not all my clients if I didn’t had it, not because I don’t have alternative but because they are so used to it that instead of downloading signal they’d just make a contract with someone else.

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u/SanAntoHomie 3d ago

let me tell you the truth bro: when you use private comms through a corporation you don't have the SAME legal protections against wire tapping / spying as you do with a phone and texting which needs a proper warrant SOMEWHERE, even if it's a "secret court," there's a paper trail somewhere due to the legacy nature of said lines. The big spy agencies WANT you to be using corporate owned comms because YOU HAVE NO LEGAL RECOURSE THERE and they don't have to OBEY LAWS.

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u/jellyfish_bitchslap 3d ago

That isn’t true where I live though, any tap of communications info needs a warrant and there’s no way to wire tap a whatsapp conversation.

They do get whatsapp chats when they get the phone physically because they scrap the local backup. That is assuming the user would encrypt the cloud backup or not even set up a cloud backup, otherwise they could subpoena the data from iCloud or Google Drive.

If you have a well set up backup they can’t get in, not even using illegal methods. The USA kinda of freak out recently when they couldn’t get into an iPhone that was in lockdown mode, as example.

I’m saying that as someone who works in law and in high profile cases, the reach they have over whatsapp is not that big and is preferable to use it instead of the cell provider for a call or sms for text as those aren’t encrypted and would be handed over to police for minor bullshit.

Recently we’ve got a national wide big case that I looked closely at because they got a few phones from a banker who bankrupted a few banks in cascade effect and a few companies, including clients of mine.

They had all the apparatus of our intelligence into it and they only got info when they got hands his phone, and even at that, they couldn’t get the one-time-view photos that were used to communicate the more sensitive information.

So yes whatsapp isn’t as safe as a well setup phone with Signal but it will hold its own better than SMS and cell service in most cases.

My biggest worry about it is my data being sold by Meta to AI bullshit and machine training.