Clubhouse is a very popular app lately. And this skyrocketing popularity is drawing attention, highlighting some elements of its security.
Unless you’ve lived offline for the past few weeks, you’ve most likely heard of the app Clubhouse, an application that brings audio conversations up to date, by allowing users – currently only iOS – to create and join chat rooms on subjects as diverse as they are varied. The popularity of the service has literally exploded, highlighting some elements of its security.
Clubhouse reinforces its security
Clubhouse is now attracting the attention of users around the world with its discussions and its approach to audio chat, but the app is raising some concerns, especially that the Chinese government may listen to users in its country who have been able to install the application before it is banned. The developers have promised to protect these users, however. Alpha Exploration told Stanford’s Internet Observatory that it had tightened up its security measures. This includes preventing Clubhouse applications from “transmitting pings” to Chinese servers. In theory, Chinese spies should have a harder time tracking the activity of the application.
in particular to avoid spying on the Chinese government
Other changes include “additional encryption”. Alpha Exploration expects changes to take effect within 72 hours, with a third party company tasked with conducting an audit on these changes.
Users were concerned that Chinese authorities could get the recorded conversations going through the country’s servers. Although only a small portion of iOS users use Clubhouse in China, they can be prime targets for spies – with the Chinese government making a point of preventing services, such as VPNs, which can help dissidents coordinate any actions -.
These new measures are crucial for the growth of Clubhouse. If the app is to be able to bypass its invitation system and launch into other platforms, Alpha Exploration will need to successfully persuade users that the app is truly private and secure. These kind of security adjustments should have big consequences in this direction and allow more users to have confidence in the application.