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An Octopus with 16 Arms

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Published in Braunschweiger Zeitung
(Germany) on 20 February 2014
by Philipp Engel (link to originallink to original)
Translated from by Kelly Barksdale. Edited by Laurence Bouvard.
Facebook is buying WhatsApp. This resonates in the digital economy, and it is a black day for privacy. It’s like two data-octopi got married and had a data-octopus child. With 16 arms.

Zuckerberg has been quoted as saying there were several ways to make money from text messaging services. Advertising was not an option. Instead, Facebook would rather make money off of user data. Both companies have piled up gigantic masses of data — the combination of the two services allows for user profiles that could hardly be more accurate.

Besides marketing agents, intelligence services are also interested in the data. And Facebook, at least, has had to send data to the NSA multiple times in the past.

WhatsApp saves telephone data and contacts. Additionally, the app can access hardware—the microphone and camera. This makes smartphones theoretically able to morph into bugging devices without the knowledge of the user. Orwell could not have thought it out better.

Users who don’t want all of their small talk saved on NSA servers are nevertheless far from helpless. There are alternatives.


Facebook kauft Whatsapp. Das ist ein Paukenschlag in der digitalen Wirtschaft – und ein schwarzer Tag für Datenschutz und Privatsphäre. Es ist, als hätten zwei Datenkraken geheiratet und ein Datenkrakenkind in die Welt gesetzt. Mit 16 Armen.

Es gäbe mehrere Wege, mit dem Kurznachrichtendienst Geld zu verdienen, wird Facebook-Chef Mark Zuckerberg zitiert. Werbung sei allerdings keine Option. Das Geld wird Facebook stattdessen wohl mit den Nutzerdaten verdienen. Beide Unternehmen haben gigantische Datenmengen angehäuft – die Kombination beider Dienste lässt Nutzerprofile zu, die kaum genauer sein könnten.

Dafür interessieren sich neben Marketing-Agenturen auch Geheimdienste. Und zumindest Facebook hat in der Vergangenheit schon mehrfach Daten an den US-Dienst NSA liefern müssen.

Whatsapp speichert Telefondaten und Kontakte. Darüber hinaus kann die App auf Hardware zugreifen, etwa auf Mikrofon und Kamera. So lässt sich das Smartphone theoretisch zur Wanze umfunktionieren – unerkannt vom Benutzer. Orwell hätte es sich nicht besser ausdenken können.

Nutzer, die nicht wollen, dass jeder Smalltalk auf NSA-Servern gespeichert werden könnte, sind dem allerdings nicht hilflos ausgeliefert. Es gibt Alternativen.
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