📍 Your Phone # Leaks Your Location on WhatsApp/Signal

Sending messages? Delivery times expose your exact spot—80%+ accuracy even within the same city. Combine with "Careless Whisper" (❤️ reactions track screen/activity) = complete location + behavior map.

The Attack:

Attacker sends messages → measures response delays

RTT (round-trip timing) fingerprints your network location

Works on Signal, Threema, WhatsApp—all have E2EE but metadata leaks

https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.11194

The Fix:

Providers: Add random delays (seconds). Users: Disable read receipts, use burner numbers, switch to usernames when possible.

Research: NDSS 2023 paper on delivery timing attacks

https://www.ndss-symposium.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/ndss2023_s188_paper.pdf

#privacy #security #bitcoin #surveillance #whatsapp #signal #cryptography #nostr #freedom #decentralization #anonymity #infosec #cybersecurity #privacymatters #foss #censorship #zeroknowledge

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Discussion

With Signal, if you run a VPN and periodically shift the location this is almost completely negated. It's also only really a concern for nation-state level actors. Understand your threat model.

completely Agree, but very few people use VPN on mobile and very very few people shift the location through VPN.

No! This does not happen with Threema!

For 5 or 6 years now they added a random delay-time to the delivery status, so nobody can get any information about that!

Agree, but it is currently the case with whatsapp and signal.