You probably discussed it because you were aware and interested in it, and your awareness and interest showed through in your other trackable habits outside of your chatroom. You only notice when they guess your interests correctly.
this is the real answer. unless you gave the app a bunch of permissions it shouldn't have, they cannot see what you do/say in matrix. but they don't need to. you willingly feed them enough information through location/posts/comments/private messages/friends/contacts/+a very long list of things for them you figure out your interests and serve you tailored ads.
It's more likely than not that, but I would like to err on the side of caution and figure out a way to fix it just in case my suspicion is true.
whatsapp is owned by Meta. I did a quick DDG search to see if I was correct and got this:
"Meta owns several companies, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Threads, Meta Quest, Horizon Worlds, Ray-Ban Stories, Mapillary, Workplace, and Portal (discontinued)."
I've been working to get the people I communicate with on Signal.app, instead. Other more informed individuals may be able to make additional suggestions.
Signal.app
Just say Signal holy fuck.
The reality is actually far scarier...
Meta manipulated you to have those conversations.
/s to a degree.
Keep nefarious apps in your work profile and don't store any files in your work profile. Turn on the work profile only when you use the app, then freeze it again as soon as you're done. Regularly clear the apps' caches. This will limit what the spyware can spy on and how long they can spy on you.
Just read most of the comments here and I feel nauseous about this.
My job encourages instagram use.
I think the only way around having our devices spy on our spoken face to face conversations is to have a mobile device with a removable battery. Who remembers the HTC EVO and all the phones like those? Anyone know of a good phone that offers the removable battery?
I only know about Fairphone and Teracube. Having owned a Teracube I recommend not getting a Teracube
Please tell me about your experience with Teracube.
Hardware specs were too constrained for regular daily use. The software updates are always way behind schedule, and the company is too small to support their warranty (I really do think they're doing their best to do what's right, but they're just super slow on turnaround for support)
It happens to me as well, in my instances it's most likely the social network they tied me to. Some friends of mine are heavy Instagram users and whenever I hang out with them I get almost real time relevant ads on my isolated Instagram.
Use it only through your web browser or bite the bullet and don't use it at all despite those people that are currently on it. Maybe explain in a meme why you are leaving and where you can be found.
Even better: Look into self hosting a Pixelfed server. It takes some skill but will be way better.
I'm planning on self hosting a matrix server in the future, but it'll be a couple of months before I can sit down and work on that.
Probably because your friends search about it when they are not having things separated and based on the social graph that IG thinks you're interested in it too?
I don't think Instagram can read your Matrix conversations, but may be able to predict your interests with fancy algorithms or buying information from data brokers, even if it's related to things you did on another device.
If you want to be more sure it's not spying on your phone, uninstall the app and use it through your web browser.
I might just have to do this, although having a VPN and accessing it on desktop might flag my account and/or lock it. Would having Instagram on my old phone and taking it off my current one help?
Use the user profiles feature of grapheneos to make a "social" profile and only use that to access Instagram / facebook.
Meta sells your convo data on WhatsApp for ads, if you use it you will get targeted ads regardless.
Other options are signal (Molly on fdroid), simplex, etc.
My car has an aux cable to connect to my phone. The cable died again so I've been rediscovering the radio and I've been been hearing commercials for whatsapp. They advertise E2EE as a feature. What you are saying is a contradiction to that. Is it possible to have E2EE AND have them sell your convo to third parties?
They advertise E2EE as a feature
They can call it E2EE as much as they want, but it's a lie. It's encrypted in transit and at rest, at least on the user's device, but unlike true E2EE, they can decrypt and view any conversation they want to.
So E2EE but they have a copy of the keys to use at their discretion. Cool, we have digital landlords now.
E2EE* plaintext with extra steps
This is particularly insidious, as they claim to use the same encryption as Signal, developed by Open Whisper Systems. But Meta allows themselves access. 2 billion users. SMH.
Does this also apply to calls?
they encrypt the content, but not the metadata. so Meta might not know what you're talking about, but will know who do you talk with, how often, where from, for how long, and so on. that'll often be more valuable for advertisers than the contents of the messages themselves.
More importantly, Meta also has the encryption keys of any WhatsApp conversation.
It's like a fucking META password manager that unlocks your vault.. (...as in your WhatsApp conversations) and locks it when they are done spying, whenever they feel like. Repeatedly.
You have no control, as in a secure private conversation unless you have the keys on your device.
Its really hard to tell from a technical perspective, especially without having closely monitored all of your digital activity (and those that you have been in close contact with) in the days/weeks leading up receiving the ads. Some things that Meta could have done (in varying degrees of realism) include:
Its really hard to comprehensively and conclusively avoid all "spying" that Meta/Instagram could do to you. The best thing that you could do is something that many people aren't capable or willing to do - not install any Meta software, don't use any Meta services, block any Meta IP addresses and/or domain names, and advocate that those around you do the same.
Realistically, the best advice that youre going to get has already been said. Use the web browser instead of the app as much as possible, ideally in a different browser and/or user profile. If you must have the app installed, keep it in a separate profile and kill the app and/or profile whenever it is not in use. Review all of your security and privacy settings in all Meta apps. Review any apps/services you allowed Meta to connect to/from (and the security/privacy settings of those apps). Reduce the amount of information that you enter/share on Meta platforms. Review the other users that you are connected with on Meta's platforms.
Is IG on a completely different profile in GrapheneOS, or is the app installed on the primary profile where you use your other apps? GrapheneOS's profiles completely isolate from one another.
Use a modified app of Instagram.
If you want to be extra safe I guess the best way would be to use the web version of Instagram with ublock origin installed. If you can find a way to use Firefox containers on Android as well it could really restrict what they can access.
Maybe Instagram has access to your keyboard so it can monitor what you're typing in other apps.
If the only thing you use it for is chat, I think you can chat with instagram users on FB messenger instead, which you can then heavily restrict in terms of the OS permissions you give to it.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
[Matrix/Element]Dead
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