Tuesday, December 24, 2019

It Seemed Like a Popular Chat App. It's Secretly a Spy Tool.

It Seemed Like a Popular Chat App. It's Secretly a Spy Tool.
Excerpt: ...(T)he service, ToTok, is actually a spying tool, according to U.S. officials familiar with a classified intelligence assessment and a New York Times investigation into the app and its developers. It is used by the government of the United Arab Emirates to try to track every conversation, movement, relationship, appointment, sound and image of those who install it on their phones. ToTok, introduced only months ago, was downloaded millions of times from the Apple and Google app stores by users throughout the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. While the majority of its users are in the Emirates, ToTok surged to become one of the most downloaded social apps in the U.S. last week, according to app rankings and App Annie, a research firm. [I saw a brief mention of this yesterday, but it slipped my mind with the bunch of emails I was digging through. This is a very serious situation for anyone who has put this on their phone or computer. NOTHING you say, do, view, or access is secure. It may be able to utilize your camera to view or photograph whatever it sees, and can certainly record any sounds it hears. If you’ve put this on your equipment, go get technical help RIGHT NOW. Ron P.]

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