4 things you must know before installing the Clubhouse app on your phone
Paul Davison, CEO of the Clubhouse application, stated at the end of last February that the application now has more than 10 million active weekly users, which means that the user base of the application has reached five times in one month.
These numbers are also impressive given that the application still requires an invitation from an existing user until now, and is available to iPhone users only, but the joining of celebrities and the previously uncharacteristic voice-based communication method made the application to the top of the list of most downloaded applications on the App Store.
However, in the midst of this mass migration, it is easy for users to ignore the threats that the application can pose to their digital privacy, so why do you have to think twice before installing the application on your phone and what are the most prominent security flaws that appeared in the application?
4 things you must know before installing the Clubhouse app on your phone
1- Beware of installing the wrong app:
When the famous billionaire and entrepreneur (Elon Musk) started a series of tweets through his account inviting people to join him in a conversation via the app, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, many began looking for this app, specifically people looking to invest in everything new.
Unfortunately, in the midst of the research, they went in the wrong direction, as they confused the voice chat application with another application called (clubhouse.io), but it is for managing projects, as investors rushed to buy shares in this application whose trading index in the financial markets jumped to more From 1,000%.
2- Clubhouse app is available for iPhones only:
So far, the Clubhouse application is currently only available to iPhone users in the App Store, so users of Android phones who want to install the application on their phones will have to check the official application website over the web every period and the other to see if it has been launched in the Google Store Play.
3- Privacy issues in the app are still being discovered:
Given that the Clubhouse application is still in its first beta version, many security flaws and loopholes have emerged that still appear successively, as many digital security experts have published many alerts about the application that do not guarantee user privacy.
Where researchers at Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) discovered in mid-February that user IDs and chat rooms are sent to servers in plain text, and the same report also stated that Agora, which has branches in many countries of the world, including China, which is the main provider of servers The one that launches the app has access to users' raw audio files, but that hasn't been confirmed yet.
A few days after the previous report was published, rumors appeared - confirmed by the developers of the application - of the leakage of conversation records in Twitter, as it appeared that there was a user who was able to broadcast the content of one of the chat rooms through his Twitter account, and although the application developers did not comment on the incident in detail, However, they stated that this incident was a violation of the privacy policy and not a breach with their emphasis on taking precautionary measures to prevent this from happening again.
4- The possibility of hacking accounts:
After you officially register on the Clubhouse app, you will be asked to grant permission to access your phone's contact list. If you refuse, you will not be able to invite anyone and then you will not be able to take full advantage of the app.
In addition, this privacy policy allows developers to transfer this data to a very wide range of third-party companies, such as: advertising companies, marketing agencies as well as law enforcement agencies.
The application also does not provide an incognito mode, so every action you take in the application will leave a trace, and moreover, the application interface does not contain the option to delete the account, instead, you must send a written request to agree to leave the application permanently.
In addition, the app does not contain traditional security features, such as: the two-factor authentication feature 2FA, so anyone can impersonate anyone, which has very bad aspects such as using these accounts to scam or blackmail users.
Tips and recommendations before using the Clubhouse app:
- Do not trust the application to maintain the privacy of your words and actions.
- Avoid sharing sensitive and personal information in chat rooms.
- If you want to use the application strongly, then you should at least wait until the official version is released, where you can then make sure that the trial errors and problems that appeared have been eliminated.
- Be careful when communicating or joining chat rooms to avoid becoming a victim of a scam.
- Make sure your phone has a reliable security app that blocks malware.