Realized that WhatsApp has a huge security flaw...


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If you change your number and someone else takes it after a few months, all your contacts/messages are accessible by the next person who installs WhatsApp on the same phone number unless the account was deleted manually. I got a new phone number and can access the previous owner's contacts/messages (using my smartphone!) This is ridiculous!

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If you change your number and someone else takes it after a few months, all your contacts/messages are accessible by the next person who installs WhatsApp on the same phone number unless the account was deleted manually. I got a new phone number and can access the previous owner's contacts/messages (using my smartphone!) This is ridiculous!

I know right :/ I reset and wiped my iPhone and deleted the WhatsApp app and was surprised to see that after my HTC 8X broke and I needed to use my iPhone 4 again, reinstalling WhatsApp immediately repopulated the messages and contacts I hadn't manually deleted from the app.

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So it's a useful feature that can backfire if you a) don't realise b) don't remember.

Maybe they should use email instead of mobile number to save details on their database like Google contacts.

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why wouldn't they use a combination of the number and a user chosen password to connect, it wouldn't change anything about the functionality. And they also need a way to transfer an account to a new number. If they did those two things, all problems reported here would have been solved

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