Saudi Arabia Blocks Viber Messaging Service 83
another random user writes in with news about Saudi Arabia blocking a popular messaging service for not providing "a means to to be monitored." "The head of the messaging application Viber has said people in Saudi Arabia have had basic freedoms taken away, after his service was blocked there. Talmon Marco told the BBC he did not know the reason for the move, but that Viber would be restored soon. In March Saudi authorities warned Viber and other encrypted messaging services that they would be blocked unless they provided a means to to be monitored. Mr Marco said he had refused to provide data requested by Saudi officials. The fact that Viber's free phone and text messaging service is no longer working in the country is not entirely unexpected. The Saudi telecoms regulator had warned the firm — along with Skype and Whatsapp — that they would be blocked if they did not agree to be monitored."
Need more Tor (Score:5, Informative)
Viber app (Score:5, Informative)
Taking a look at the Viber app, "Viber allows you to text, call, and send photos and video messages worldwide for free to over 200 million users using 3G or Wifi"...." the app syncs with your mobile contact list"...
So the app grabs your contacts lists, there's the graph data right there, 200 million users a lot of expensive servers.
Trying to install it, it requires your GPS location, Microphone (no surprise there, its VOIP), Camera... Your accounts, Your Phone Calls, Directly call numbers, read phone status, and identity. Your social information, modify contacts, read call logs, read your contacts, read your social stream, write call logs, write your social stream....
It even gives itself permission to run at startup.
Motherload!
Distributed solutions the way to go (Score:4, Informative)
Not just a Saudi problem - Obama thinks snooping on messages is just fine and dandy as long as it is not done to members of his Master Race. So far. May I once more bring people's attention to the Open and Free SMS encryption via the Textsecure Android app [whispersystems.org], and the disaster- (and government-) resistant mesh networking of Project Byzantium [project-byzantium.org] which now runs on a Raspberry Pi. They are becoming more and more relevant, and soon we shall have to switch to darknets to do anything non-commercial. Get with the program early, folks.