- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
A privacy flaw in WhatsApp, an instant messenger with over 2 billion users worldwide, is being exploited by attackers to bypass the app’s “View once” feature and view messages again.
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Not surprised since “view once” doesn’t actually exist on a computer you have control over
Indeed, it should be clear to everybody that a motivated actor could record the view-once message, if nothing else by taking a picture of the screen with another device.
They are still useful to convey (in a rather strong way) the intention of keeping the message off-the-record, and to avoid the risk of a third party reading it e.g. by stealing the phone.
Yea, view-once features in apps are mostly an illusion that’s oversold.
We have something close to some sort of an actual view once thing at work… it involves controlled access into secure rooms with no windows, lawyers, NDAs, security takes your phone and whatnot kinda deal.
A self destructing message is better than nothing, but hardly a guarantee
I was skeptical reading the headline but changed my mind after reading their advertising:
The recipient also can’t take a screenshot of anything you send using view once.
Like, you can’t just say things like that. Complete privacy doesn’t exist. Signal has a similar feature, and while they don’t explicitly say “anyone can save this message on the other end”, they also don’t advertise it as completely private.
Are you sure it’s a big and not a feature?
