Iran Tells Citizens To Delete WhatsApp

Iranian state television has instructed residents to delete WhatsApp from their smartphones, claiming the messaging platform gathers user information to share with Israel.

The local media provided no evidence supporting these allegations but additionally encouraged residents to avoid other "location-based" apps. WhatsApp has disputed the claims, with a spokesperson telling Time magazine the Meta-owned platform uses end-to-end encryption and does not track precise locations, keep messaging logs, or provide bulk information to governments.

The episode comes at a time when Iran is simultaneously experiencing a "near-total national Internet blackout," according to NetBlock, an internet governance monitoring organization. The disruption follows earlier partial outages amid escalating military tensions with Israel after days of missile strikes between the countries.

Further reading, from earlier this week: Iran Bans Officials From Using Internet-Connected Devices.

Sensible

[DrXym]

Iran is at war with Israel and the US. It would be very stupid to be using tools provided by its adversaries no matter what public reassurances were given. Even if Whatsapp was encrypting messages end to end, it's still potentially capable of providing IP address, location and other useful meta data to an attacker.

Re:

[dfghjk]

WhatsApp isn't "provided by its adversaries", but you are definitely who this propaganda speaks to.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but you have to be beyond stupid to think that Meta isn't in some way beholden to the US government, and you also have to be beyond stupid to think that Israel and the US aren't sharing intelligence.

Re: Sensible

[Midnight_Falcon]

I mean, MBS of Saudi did have his guys use a zero day, zero click WhatsApp exploit to hack Jeff Bezos and extort him over nude selfies. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org] The exploit probably came from NSO group, an Israeli company. So the rational fear here on Iran's part is that they have other undisclosed zero days they can deploy for complete remote ownage of phones with WhatsApp installed.

That said, for a country (Iran) boasting of its hacking prowess and with so many of their hackers on bug bounty sites etc, their inability to defend and resorting to announcements like this is pretty comical.

Whatsapp can get you killed.

[echo123]

I mean, MBS of Saudi did have his guys use a zero day, zero click WhatsApp exploit to hack Jeff Bezos and extort him over nude selfies.

Mohammad Bone Saw (MBS) also used a zero-day, zero-click Whatsapp hack [cnn.com] to dismember Jamal Kashoggi into little pieces.

Re:

[buck-yar]

Agree 100%, from Iran's standpoint this would be expected. The Snowden revelations seem to be fading out of people's memory.

The local media provided no evidence supporting these allegations

Seems plausible though, given Google's project Nimbus, tech company board execs joining the military, Meta making military googles etc.

Re:

[dfghjk]

How are the "Snowden revelations" relevant? Don't these "revelations" make clear that the publisher of an application is irrelevant?

"Seems plausible though..."

And that's good enough!

Re:

[alvinrod]

Deleting Meta (Facebook) owned apps or products is sensible behavior for anyone in any country. Zuckerberg is everyone's adversary.

Re:

[dfghjk]

"What's the real solution? Dissolve Islam, or, accept that heros of international freedom, like Israel, will continue to keep it in check."

LOL, that's where you lost the plot. "Heros of international freedom"? Israel? Sure, Islam is a core part of the problem, so is Zionism. And that's not all.

Re:

[dfghjk]

"Israel is attacking terrorist groups, it's insane to object to that."
That's a straw man, no one is objecting to that. But Israel is attacking a sovereign, not merely terrorist groups, and you called Israel "heros of international freedom". They are not heroes, at best they are defending themselves and even that is questionable. Is their gynocide of Palestinians heroic? You think that's not involved?

"To be fair, I said "Dissolve Islam", after pointing out it has an extremist problem, and how is that goi

Re:

[Alypius]

This "sovereign" happens to be the head of these terrorist groups; you might have heard the country referred to as a "state sponsor of terrorism."

Your understanding of extremism needs work. You sound like the kind of person who sees no difference between a 70-year old woman praying in front of an abortion clinic and an ISIS fighter who sets women on fire for not wearing a hijab.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

And you are the kind of person who thinks killing 55,000 people with bombs and artillery shells isn't an act of terror, but killing 1000 people with guns is. Who thinks damaging to a hospital in Israel is an act of terror, but blowing up every hospital in Gaza and killing their staff isn't. And who sees no difference between a woman praying in front of an abortion clinic and killing its staff. Its the normal definition of terror, our side are heroic defenders their side are bloody terrorists.

Re:

[Murdoch5]

I never said, and would never have said Islam has the only extremist problem, the issue right now is that terrorist groups, Hamas, and Iranian groups, are and did attack Israel, that's not up for debate. How many governments have demanded Israel stand down? What would they stand down from? All Israel has done since October 7th is tried and rectify a major issue, by targeting terrorist groups, those that directly engaged them. The calls for Israel to stand down, are calls for Israel to accept and submit t

Re:

[dfghjk]

"Zionism has nothing to do with religion."
Bullshit. Without religion zionism could not exist at all. Jews are semites, zionism recognizes this "right to live" entirely for religious reasons. Zionism isn't jewish, but it absolutely is religious.

I support sovereignty of a nation on that land, I don't believe that those of jewish faith and ancestry are entitled to rule that nation because some God chose them. I oppose Zionism, which is exactly that premise.

"Islam is not the problem or we'd have a real big o

Re:

[Going_Digital]

It isn't Islam that is the problem, it is the lack of critical thinking ability that prevents people from questioning a faith or religion. People with an agenda then use that unquestioning loyalty to achieve their own objectives. The fact that the world legitimises any religion is the problem, once you make allowances for a mostly 'harmless' religion, you legitimise all religion, as you are saying it is ok to believe something without any evidence. The world needs less religion and more critical thinking,

Re:

[Murdoch5]

100%, however, how are you going to do that? To be fair, no religion should get any protection, but also to be fair, Israel is going after the terrorist groups, whereas the terrorist groups are going after Israel, without focus.

Re:

[dfghjk]

"...it is the lack of critical thinking ability that prevents people from questioning a faith or religion."
Which in Islam is a crime punishable by death.

"People with an agenda then use that unquestioning loyalty to achieve their own objectives."
Which is why unquestioned loyalty is required in Islam. This is the purpose of organized religions, in Islam that commitment is codified, you cannot leave Islam.

"Stop treating people with imaginary friends as normal, would be a good start."
A good start would require

Re:

[Murdoch5]

Sure, so why not continue to fight the terrorist groups?

Re:

[dfghjk]

He didn't say that, this is what's known as a straw man.

The long term answer to terrorism is to address root cause. Fighting terrorism and dropping bombs are not necessarily the same thing.

A while back, the US finally figured out that supporting stability in latin American nations was far more effective and far less costly in addressing illegal immigration that fighting battles at the borders. Then Trump got elected and reversed all those policies. Short sightedness is a hallmark of a weak mind, now what

I wonder about the impact of immiseration

[shilly]

Iranians, whether ordinary people or members of the regime (clerics, military, IRGC, nuclear scientists, politicians etc), are facing a very sharp reduction in the quality of their lives. Lots of new restrictions on device usage coupled with price spikes and shortages of everything. I do wonder how this will play out in the end.

Bernie Sanders wise words on this mess

[oumuamua]

Do not let US get sucked into war. Unfortunately Trump is prone to do the opposite of whatever Democrats say https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Re:

[dfghjk]

Fortunately, Bernie is not a Democrat.

Democrats addressed Iranian nuclear ambitions in the Obama era, Trump destroyed that. Any Iranian nuclear capability is entirely Trump's responsibility.

Population will mostly ignore those orders

[hdyoung]

The Iranian government is loathed by most of the population. They’re not fans of Israel or the US, but they’re *really* tired of being beaten by the local religious fanatics while the mullahs dominate the best parts of the economy and let their sons publicly womanize and drive around in Lamborghinis.

I’m not a fan of violent regime change. I’m a US citizen, and I’m well aware of our history doing that. It usually turns out badly. The last time that strategy worked well was G

We get what we deserve

[jacks smirking reven]

I have said from the outset that Trump's abandoning of the JCPOA (Obama's Iran Nuclear Deal) was the worst foreign policy mistake since Iraq 2003 and here unfortunately it came to pass as true.

Trump said he would do it while running in 2016 and he did and once again what did the "Master Negotiator" negotiate the promised superior deal since we got "ripped off" on the first one, ...well we got nothing, nothing at all but more saber rattling and kicking the can down the road for another 4 years.

All the jokes about Kamala starting the draft, "no new wars under Trump" (that also has always been a lie), well, they probably ain't worth shit now. We did it, it's been 23 years since Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech and we are now getting to #2. Trump could still declare on N. Korea, get the trifecta going.

Strap in kids, it's gonna be a bumpy ride once those B2's take off.

For the record I don't even disagree that something needs to be done about Iran's nuclear capability but that was done and then we threw it away to assuage one mans tiny and easily bruised ego. We deserve a nice needless foreign war again. This shit sucks.

Re:

[jacks smirking reven]

My silly prediction, we sell Israel the bunker busters and 2x B-2 bombers so *technically* Israel runs the mission and drop the bombs, which is both incredibly dubious and stupid but maybe the best option that is left here.