WhatsApp

Most users of apps like WhatsApp and Telegram expect their communications to be encrypted and therefore protected, but that doesn't mean all communications shared through those apps are safe from intrusion. Symantec today published a report in which it details vulnerabilities present in both apps on Android that could potentially allow malicious actors to hijack shared media files and replace them before recipients realize what's going on.

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What's the deal with Facebook right now - and what's happening with WhatsApp and Instagram? Several major social networks were effectively put out of commission this morning by a yet-unnamed software issue. While Snapchat and Twitter rest on different, separate servers from the rest, while the rest are owned by Facebook. Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are all under the one umbrella, also called Facebook.

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One of the advantages of being a part of a larger company is the ease of sharing with other parts of the company. At the same time, that could be problematic if your parent company happens to be named “Facebook”. WhatsApp has been particularly careful to distance itself from its owner but its upcoming Status-sharing feature could raise concerns once again. Fortunately, at least according to the company, it isn’t doing anything new on iOS or Android to implement it.

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Instagram announced the death of another feature this week, not long after rumors surfaced of the axing of public likes. This is just the latest in a line of changes for Instagram, an app and company that's coming closer and closer to its parent company, Facebook. I quit using Facebook a few months ago for all but the rarest family communication - is it time I gave Instagram the boot as well? NOTE: If it weren't clear already, the opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily shared by SlashGear or associated entities.

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There are currently quite a number of messaging services, a handful of them from Google itself, but few have withstood the test of time and of the market. WhatsApp, even before its acquisition by Facebook, was already making waves but its popularity and notoriety rose after being snatched up by the social networking giant. It prided itself for its end-to-end encryption, one of the few mainstream platforms to advertise such a feature, but that turned out to be pretty useless if a vulnerability allowed certain actors to inject spyware into phones by simply ringing up the phone.

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With all the controversy that continues to hound Facebook, it's almost too easy to forget about the other social networking services it owns. Instagram remains ever so popular and some still resort to WhatsApp for their messaging needs. The latter, however, has had its fair share of privacy-related scandals but now it's taking a step forward in that arena by giving users more control over the groups they are invited to join.

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Today a new program from Facebook was released in order to combat the sharing of intimate images without shared consent. This is sometimes referred to as "revenge porn" and it's become a major problem across all forms of social media in the past half-decade. Today Facebook's pilot program revealed over a year and a half ago live in a new security-aimed hub called "Not without my consent."

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Facebook just announced the loss of two of its most major executives. One was the Facebook head of product, the other was the head of WhatsApp. Chris Cox has apparently been wanting to leave the company for "a few years," according to company head Mark Zuckerberg. WhatsApp head Chris Daniels has also "decided to leave the company" - and Zuckerberg's used the same language in announcing the apparent self-made decisions by both leaders. If we analyze the language used by Zuckerberg in his note today, we can glean a bit before we move on to more grand analysis.

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Facebook was down yesterday, resulting in troubles with all of Facebook's various properties. This includes WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook proper. This is a good example for why one should not rely on one company to provide all of one's means of communication. Today Facebook revealed the reason why it had some troubles in the last day - a "server configuration change." I mean, yes I'm sure that's possible, but really?

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Facebook has been experiencing an outage that continues to impact some Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Oculus users. The issue has been ongoing for hours today, and though Facebook has acknowledged it multiple times, the reason for the outage remains unclear. In its most recent update, Facebook said that it can confirm the problem does not stem from a DDoS attack.

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WhatsApp can now be locked down with Face ID on Apple's newest iPhones, allowing users of the instant messaging service to secure their chats from prying eyes. The update, released to the App Store this week, also includes support for Touch ID security on versions of the iPhone that have the fingerprint sensor.

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The newest update to WhatsApp seems to be moving the messaging service closer to that of its associated brand partners. In an effort to curb the misuse of the platform around the world, the app will soon have a limit of five forwards for every unique message. At this moment it's not clear how lenient the algorithm for this limit will be. For example, what if I changed just one letter - is that a different message?

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