The time has come for us to make passwords for identifying each other..
this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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or, you know, you can just pickup the phone and call them.
You might not be aware of it, but in India (and SEA), using whatsapp video call is a lot more common than calling using your carrier's phone service. No one would think twice when receiving a whatsapp video calls there.
i am not aware of that, no, but my point is not that the video call itself is suspicious. it is that if you have have a suspicion for whatever reason, normal cell call for a verification is far easier than doing some strange gymnastics the person above suggested (which may or may not work).
I guess that also allows for some 'benefit of the doubt' from the point of view of the victim, it's probably harder to spot artifacts that would be obvious on a TV or monitor screen when the image is v small, and any glitches could be due to the video stream / compression
So why is that? Why do people from other countries use WhatsApp instead of the carriers service? My family in the UK uses it for not only us yanks, but for each other in country as well…why? I’m not gonna download it, they can just email me or text me like a normal person. Like they insist on WhatsApp. I don’t fucking get it.
Two things really:
Unlike in the US, unlimited calls and unlimited sms is not a thing in many countries where WhatsApp is popular. In contrast, WhatsApp calls and messages are free. This was quite significant, especially early on when WhatsApp starting to get popular during the J2ME / Symbian era.
Now that everyone use it, if you don't use it you'll be that one weirdo who don't use WhatsApp and people may choose to not contact you at all (especially if it'll cost money to call you). Even businesses and banks have WhatsApp account these days, so not using WhatsApp will inconvenience you if you live where WhatsApp is dominant.
I had this attack tried on me. It was a video call from my friend's Facebook account. If I didn't know enough to be suspicious, I wouldn't have answered. Luckily I have that friend on Signal, so I knew they wouldn't have called me on Facebook asking for money. I tried calling on Signal, but they didn't answer. They must've not had their phone on them. Calling their home phone worked, though, which is kind of a weird thought.
Their phone was probably offline at the moment.
Nah, they just leave it in another room sometimes and don't care if they miss a call or notification.