Here is what we get in the tech news today, not even mainstream news sites :

extrait : "Uninstall This Alleged Emirati Spy App From Your Phone Now. A messaging app called ToTok had scores of positive reviews, particularly from users in the UAE. US intelligent officials say it may be spying for that government instead. A social messaging app called ToTok has been surging in popularity around the world in recent weeks. If you happen to be one of the hundreds of thousands of users who downloaded it you should delete the app from your phone immediately. (...)"

This is not a suggestion to act. This is a freaking ORDER to act.

What went so wrong to urge such thing ? Well read the article for yourself :

extrait : "it's likely a surveillance tool that can funnel data to the government of the United Arab Emirates. Google removed the app from Google Play on Thursday and Apple removed it from the App Store on Friday, but ToTok will keep working—and potentially spying—if it’s already on your phone."

Holy caca, this must be some wacky thing going on, heh! heh ?

extrait : "Patrick Wardle, a security researcher at Jamf specialized in Apple operating systems who formerly worked at the National Security Agency. "When you start analyzing an app like this you expect to find a backdoor or some zero day exploits,” Wardle says. “But the more I think about it, this is actually a more elegant approach, which is just leveraging completely legitimate functionality. What that gives you is a very cost effective, easy way to gain a ton of information on people.""

A ton of information about people socializing together ? You mean, like facebook, twitter, etc. ?

extrait : "The app had scores of positive reviews, particularly from users in the UAE who were excited about its lack of restrictions."

Interestingly enough, the reason why the app got coverage and mouth virality is that in the UAE, this is an uncommon app. Most social apps are crippled to limit the freedom of expression of people using it. This app does not. In fact, any open society would welcome such thing.

extrait : "Wardle found that the app was set up to run continuously in the background. It would have requested permission to access users' microphones, location data, photos, camera, calendar, contacts, and Siri integration. The app provided explanations for why this access was necessary: for example, that location data was needed to display information about local weather. The crucial thing to understand about ToTok is that it does exactly what it claims to do. "

So this is a completely legit app in both grounds. What's the problem then ?

extrait : ""The problem is where's the data going and who has access to it? And those are very, very hard questions to answer," Wardle says. "There's a large amount of plausible deniability, which is why it's a no-brainer approach to gain a high degree of surveillance. I'm not saying it's good or ethical, but if other countries aren't doing this, from their point of view they should.""

Wait a minute, what is this security researcher saying. One, this app is legit and does what it explains to do. Second, every one is entitled to make such thing available for use.

extrait : "For now, just make sure you've uninstalled ToTok, and tell others to do the same."

See, uninstall it because you are being told to uninstall it, period. This is propaganda fed to tech sites which, sad as this is, are not any better than mainstream sites as soon as US national interest is at risk. Oddly enough, when US national interest, usually this benefits almost everybody in the world.