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Hacking. Disinformation. Surveillance. CYBER is Motherboard's podcast and reporting on the dark underbelly of the internet.
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In WhatsApp, all users display an "online" notification under their profile picture when the app is open. As cybersecurity company Traced found, there are multiple online services that leverage this feature to allow people to easily check whether a WhatsApp user is online without having to start a chat with them, and some of them specifically market themselves for tracking suspected cheating spouses.Motherboard then spoke to someone who is the administrator of at least one of those sites, via the contact email address on the website. The service offers users the ability to see anyone's online history, receive push notifications when the target does go online, and even predict whether two people are speaking to each other by mapping out their WhatsApp activity.Do you know about any other ways that abusive partners are leveraging technology? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, OTR chat on jfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.
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