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Google allowed ToTok back into its Google Play store over the weekend, despite the fact that the intel community insists the chat app is a spy tool for the UAE and ToTok is trying to bribe journalists into saying good things about it 👇
ToTok claims in its email to me that a former NSA worker (they didn’t identify who) gave its app a 👍. But the NYT had @patrickwardle examine the app - Patrick is also former NSA - and he found it to be a spy tool.
“ToTok is a cleverly designed tool for mass surveillance... it tracks users’ location by offering an accurate weather forecast. It hunts for new contacts any time a user opens the app ...It has access to users’ microphones, cameras and calendar”
“There is a beauty in this approach,” said @patrickwardle. “You don’t need to hack people to spy on them if you can get people to willingly download this app to their phone. By uploading contacts, video chats, location, what more intelligence do you need?”
@patrickwardle I don’t know if ToTok is being used for UAE gov surveillance, but keep in mind this deep dive by the NYT into these connections to the app
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