Editor’s note: This article was first published in May 2013, as a news piece with an update dated 22 July 2013 about the arrest of the app’s creator for allegedly swindling more than 40,000 euros.
Update, 22 July 2013
As expected, the “entrepreneur” (or rather swindler) behind this app has been arrested by the police for scamming more than 40,000 euros in a few months through it, according to the Spanish newspaper La Verdad.
Do you want to spy on your contacts’ WhatsApp conversations? Do you want to know what they say about you? I imagine that being able to snoop on the WhatsApp conversations of your partner, your neighbour or your boss must be very tempting for many people.
For some time now, social networks and inboxes have been bombarded with various apps that claim to be able to read the WhatsApp messages of anyone whose phone number you have. And, of course, people take the bait out of curiosity, looking for their victim without realising that they themselves are the victim. It is all a lie.
These supposed WhatsApp spy programs are an outright scam that can end up costing the user who installs them dearly.
To begin with, some of these programs require you to send a text message in order to download the supposed app. Once they give you a code, entering it along with your phone number means accepting a subscription to messages about who knows what. The point is that you will be charged for every message they send you, and the number of messages you will receive promises to be large.
But that may be the least of it, since we don’t know the extent (and we have no intention of testing it) of the damage and data theft that installing this kind of app could cause. Once it is on our PC or mobile phone, the app could access all kinds of passwords.
They have even gone as far as faking tweets supposedly posted by Antena 3 and Telecinco (two of Spain’s main TV channels) praising the wonderful app. Clearly, neither of these accounts ever published those messages on Twitter.
Technology experts say it is practically impossible for any app to access encrypted WhatsApp conversations, and if such an app did exist, it would not be any of the ones currently circulating. So relax: your WhatsApp conversations are safe for now, and the day they are at risk… that day, WhatsApp would be forced to shut down.
Featured image: Japanexperterna.se, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
