Smart observation! While it doesn’t give a precise location (~300 miles), that info can still be dangerous to certain people. A state agency with a history of going after activists and journalists (eg North Korea & Saudi Arabia) could use that info to know where to focus efforts if not at least somewhat confirm their target’s location found through other means. If anything, they could at the least find out what country their target is hiding in.
The How to Protect Yourself section doesn’t provide instructions on how to protect yourself. I guess there really isn’t a way to protect yourself if you use those services, correct? The best thing you could do is prohibit notifications and only open communication from people you trust. That seems quite limiting and keeps your vulnerability in the control of anyone that messages you anyway. The only effective way to protect yourself is to not use any communication services at all, which would then make activists and journalists ineffective.
Smart observation! While it doesn’t give a precise location (~300 miles), that info can still be dangerous to certain people. A state agency with a history of going after activists and journalists (eg North Korea & Saudi Arabia) could use that info to know where to focus efforts if not at least somewhat confirm their target’s location found through other means. If anything, they could at the least find out what country their target is hiding in.
The How to Protect Yourself section doesn’t provide instructions on how to protect yourself. I guess there really isn’t a way to protect yourself if you use those services, correct? The best thing you could do is prohibit notifications and only open communication from people you trust. That seems quite limiting and keeps your vulnerability in the control of anyone that messages you anyway. The only effective way to protect yourself is to not use any communication services at all, which would then make activists and journalists ineffective.
Using a VPN should defeat the attack by having a different data center cache the media file.
Nice, just almost twice the size of my country :p