this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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Privacy

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I use xprivacylua to prevent whatsapp from having access to most of the possible software and hardware information to mitigate the fingerprint and now I'm also using the imagepipe to send any image through it.

However, the doubt came.

And the photos taken directly into the option within the application?

Can you still capture metadata?

Note: I use degoogle smartphone. And I do not speak English so excuse any fault.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

I use xprivacylua to prevent whatsapp from having access to most of the possible software and hardware information to mitigate the fingerprint

That's pretty useless given that WA has your phone number and is owned by Facebook who can identify you by just looking at when you receive messages. You're already identified, there's not use in hiding hardware information at that point and that's barely much of an identifier anyways.

Image metadata is mainly a concern when other people aren't supposed to know where they're taken. If you're sending them to friends and family who know where you are anyways, why bother.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

signal deletes all metadata in photos.

what you do is, you uninstall that zuckerberg shit and install signal instead

problem solved

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

In an ideal world we wouldnt need proprietary shitware like WhatsApp. But convincing everyone you know to switch is near impossible.

“Oh, just get better friends or force an ultimatum” is not a healthy solution either. Got one friend and he just doesnt have the phone space for a extra app and sometime we compromise or goals to be with our friends.

Edit: the 2nd part isnt related to the parent comment but to what I've seen on all the privacy and foss communities

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

I use scrambled exif. Which I imagine is similar to imagepipe. If you are asking for the metadata in the image itself, it might not have too much but you can analyze it on your computer to see what whatsapp will receive.

Though, with whatsapp, I'm sure you have more things to worry about than just photo metadata.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Use xnviewmp or exiftool or irfanview or whatever program works for you on your PC. Imagepipe and scrambled exif simply remove everything, they are safe.

Disable camera permission to the app, as well as mic. Do audio recordings externally and send them.

Use whatsapp only in a shelter work profile with seperate contacts that only use whatsapp.

Use a vpn for whatsapp to avoid IP fingerprinting with other activities.

I am so happy I can just not use it. But on GrapheneOS I miss XPrivacyLua

[–] [email protected] -3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

there isn't really mitigating any hardware fingerprint. whatever you're using sounds like a bit of a scam lol.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's an open source xposed framework module so you can read the code to see what it's doing: https://github.com/M66B/XPrivacyLua/tree/master

[–] [email protected] -5 points 10 months ago

oh great. rooting, smh