Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Thank CTOnews.com netizens soft media Xinyou 1933769 for the clue delivery! On May 10, a Twitter engineer revealed that WhatsApp, an instant messaging app owned by Meta, tried to access the microphone of his Android phone while he was sleeping. Later, Twitter CEO Elon Musk commented on Twitter that the app could not be trusted. Earlier, WhatsApp blamed Google's loopholes for the problem.

Over the weekend, Fuat Foad Dabiri, Twitter's engineering director, posted a screenshot of his Android phone, showing WhatsApp trying to access the microphone in the background. He wrote: "WhatsApp was always backstage trying to use the microphone, and I fell asleep and woke up at 6: 00 in the morning (this is only part of the timeline)! what's going on?"

Darby seems to have discovered the problem through a privacy dashboard that has been available since Android 12, which helps users detect and restrict applications from accessing certain functions on the hardware. Based on screenshots, the dashboard appeared to capture WhatsApp's microphone repeatedly trying to access Darby's phone between 4: 00 a.m. and 7: 00 a.m. local time.

In response to social media, Musk, Twitter's new boss, wrote: "WhatsApp can't be trusted!" This led many users to reply that they had deleted the app.

WhatsApp's attempt to access the phone microphone came as a surprise, especially given that the instant messaging app belongs to Meta. However, WhatsApp said the dispute was a misunderstanding. "We believe this is a loophole in Android that misallocated information in their privacy dashboards and has asked Google to investigate and remedy it," WhatsApp said in a tweet.

WhatsApp also noted that all voice calls and user messages remain end-to-end encrypted on the platform. This means that unless they get the user's smartphone, no one, not even WhatsApp itself, can decrypt the user's voice call data.

The chat app added: "even with the user's permission, WhatsApp can only access the microphone when the user makes a phone call or records a voice recording or video. In this case, these communications are protected by end-to-end encryption, so WhatsApp cannot decrypt the data."

Google said it was working with WhatsApp to investigate the issue.

Still, Musk's tweets could damage WhatsApp's reputation, although it's not the first time he's tried to attack the encrypted chat app. In 2021, after WhatsApp announced a new privacy policy covering how to share user data with Facebook, Musk encouraged users to use his competitor Signal. A week later, WhatsApp postponed the policy update in the face of strong public opposition.

According to foreign media reports, Musk's statement may have ulterior motives. Under his leadership, Twitter could become a competitor to WhatsApp in the future, a "super app" that can provide personal information, banking and social media services. This will include end-to-end encryption for instant messaging and voice calls.

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