By on December 3, 2013 inMobile Technology



whatsapp-free


There are many "must-have" apps that everyone is telling you to get; some are truly the "must-have" apps that you "must-have".


What's Up with the WhatsApp?


One such app is the WhatsApp; this app is a messenger app that is an instant messaging subscription service for smartphones. Along with text messaging, users are able to send other images, videos, and audio media messages; the client software is currently available for Androids, BlackBerry 10, iOS, Series 40, Sybian (S60), and the Windows Phone.


In the beginning and since…


It was 2009 when WhatsApp Inc. was founded Brian Acton and Jan Koum – who is also the CEO — both are the former employees of Yahoo!; their base is in Santa Clara, California.


WhatsApp began to compete with several Asian-based messaging services since their inception; such services like LINE, KakaoTalk, and WeChat. As of August of 2012, WhatsApp was responsible for ten billion messages per day; growing in leaps and bounds from two billion in April of 2012 and roughly one billion the prior to that in October of 2011.


On June 13th of 2013, WhatsApp made an announcement on another social media outlet – Twitter — that they had in fact reached their new daily record by processing a total of 27 billion messages. It has since been reported that as of August 6th of 2013, WhatsApp has well over 300 million active users, and 325 million photos that are shared each day.


The Glitches and Snags


Technical


Now I am not one for the technical mumbo-jumbo but for the sake of this article, I will do my best to make this as painless as possible for those of you who are much more technically inclined than I am. From how I understand it, WhatsApp uses a customized version of that is known as the open standard Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol or (XMPP).


Upon its installation, it immediately creates a user account by using the user's phone number as the username; this means that software automatically compares all of the phone numbers that are stored in the device from the device's address book with its central database of WhatsApp users in order to automatically add contacts to the user's contact list. It should be noted that previously the Android and S40 versions used an MD5-hashed, reversed-version of the phone's IMEI as password, while the iOS version used the phone's Wi-Fi MAC address instead of IMEI – whatever this means – recently an update that was made now generates a random password on the server side.


Security


This section – much like the section above – is not my forte and I apologize now for the pain you may experience in my lack of knowledge if I should sound as like a dope. In May of 2011, there was a security hole that was reported to be left open on user's account, leaving them open for hijacking to take place. Also reported since May of 2011, WhatsApp communications were said to not be encrypted and the data is sent and received in plaintext; this means the messages can be easily read if packet traces are made available.


Since this report — according to a few sources — the hijacking that took place was later fixed by helping WhatsApp to reproduce it on Android and Symbian, by Liroy van Hoewijk — CEO of CoreISP.net. In May of 2012, some security researchers took notice of new updates of WhatsApp not being sent messages as plaintext, the cryptographic method that was implemented was subsequently "broken".


A newer version of the application for iPhones was release in September of 2011, essentially closing all critical security holes that were allowing forged messages to be sent as well as allowing any messages from any WhatsApp user to be read by anyone. Also reported, on January 13th of 2012, WhatsApp was ultimately removed from the iOS App Store; with no reason being disclosed. It should be noted that the WhatsApp was later added back to the App Store; four days later to be exact.


Privacy


Of the many issues is the huge privacy and security problem that many have been griping about is the fact of a joint Canadian-Dutch government investigation; there is a primary concern made known was that WhatsApp required for users to upload their mobile device's address book in its entirety to WhatsApp's servers so that WhatsApp could see who, of the users' existing contacts, was available through WhatsApp. Although this is a fast and convenient way to quickly locate and connect the user with these contacts, this meant their address book was at that time mirrored onto the WhatsApp servers; this included contact information for those who were not using WhatsApp. This information was at such time being stored as a hash tag symbol; without any additional identification information.


While apps are quite helpful and serve a great purpose, it goes without saying that they are not problem proof; regardless of what the problem is or could ever be. It is important to know that all apps – no matter which app it is – that there will be problems and your information could – at any time – be seen without your knowledge.


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