they claim to have achieved a rate of 7,000/s, which is roughly 25M/h
i do agree that is an absurd amount, especially when paired with the lack of rate limiting as discussed in their paper.
> "[...] Moreover, we did not experience any prohibitive rate-limiting. With our query rate of 7,000 phone numbers per second (and session), we could confirm 3.5 B phone numbers registered on WhatsApp [...]"
prior to my initial comment, i was under the impression they had encountered ratelimiting and bypassed it, it appears this initial assumption was incorrect.
i agree that it is ridiculous, though i faulter on calling it a vulnerability as in my eyes that term is specifically for unintended side affects / exploitation.
abigailphoebe|3 months ago
they claim to have achieved a rate of 7,000/s, which is roughly 25M/h
i do agree that is an absurd amount, especially when paired with the lack of rate limiting as discussed in their paper.
> "[...] Moreover, we did not experience any prohibitive rate-limiting. With our query rate of 7,000 phone numbers per second (and session), we could confirm 3.5 B phone numbers registered on WhatsApp [...]"
prior to my initial comment, i was under the impression they had encountered ratelimiting and bypassed it, it appears this initial assumption was incorrect.
i agree that it is ridiculous, though i faulter on calling it a vulnerability as in my eyes that term is specifically for unintended side affects / exploitation.
lxgr|3 months ago
Wouldn't that be the exact same privacy problem in effect? What's the practical difference between ineffective and no rate limiting?