The truth is that the software so described and purchased by GDBOP cannot “spy” and collect data from these mobile applications.
The software* only allows analyzing databases – messages, mail, history of sites visited through the browser, user data, etc., but only if the phone is unlocked. That is, if someone’s iPhone 7, for example, gets into the GDBOP, they won’t be able to get into it if it’s locked with a password.
A year ago, the FBI paid** $900,000 to access the San Bernardino terrorist’s phone. But that phone was an iPhone 5c, running the old iOS 9 operating system. With the software obtained for that amount, government agents can now get into any of those phones.
But even this software does not give them the opportunity to monitor in real time what people are writing to each other through the respective messengers, which use encryption of the connection “from the beginning to the end”.
In apps like WhatsApp and Signal, this encryption is the default. In other applications, there is a choice whether the message is encrypted or not. In addition, in Signal, for example, there is a function to delete the sent messages, so that no trace of them will remain.
So – relax, don’t get tied up and use your messengers.
I take this opportunity to warn you to keep one thing in mind: when you delete photos, texts, messages, etc. from your phones or computers, they aren’t actually deleted, you just don’t see them on your screen.
Very often they remain in the memory until the space they occupy is not needed for another file – photo, program, etc.
They are only deleted by applications that are specifically designed to actually delete and not just remove the file presence message from the screen.
In some special services, when they have to scrap a hard disk, for example, they don’t just delete the files, they format the disk, and at the same time fundamentally (not quick format!) and not once, but several times, after which they physically destroy it, smashing it to pieces.
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* – Description of the purchased software – on the manufacturer’s website:
** – Reuters on the FBI case (in English):
#GDBOP #spy #messengers