PVLF 2025

Frontlist | New claim by French hacker raises fears about Koo leaking data

Frontlist | New claim by French hacker raises fears about Koo leaking data
on Feb 11, 2021

Amid massive shift of Twitter users to the Indian-made alternative ‘Koo’, a new claim has come up accusing the new microblogging platform of “leaking” personal data of its users.

Amid massive shift of Twitter users to the Indian-made alternative ‘Koo’, a new claim has come up accusing the new microblogging platform of “leaking” personal data of its users. A French hacker who goes by the pseudonym of Elliot Alderson on Twitter on Thursday alleged that Koo exposes personal information of users like email, date of birth, name, marital status, gender and more. Twitter recently came under the attack of Indian government which demanded the social media giant to remove certain user accounts that allegedly have ‘Khalistani’ links.

Read More: Our Pick: 10 books from India we loved in 2020

Posting a series of tweets to go with his findings of Koo, Alderson said he spent 30 minutes on the Koo app after many users requested him and found that the microblogging app that promises Twitter-like experience was leaking certain sensitive information about its users.

“You asked so I did it. I spent 30 min on this new Koo app. The app is leaking of the personal data of his users: email, dob, name, marital status, gender, …” Robert Baptiste aka Elliot Alderson wrote in a Twitter thread.

He also noted that the Indian-made Twitter lookalike had a domain address based in the United States and a registrant based in China. Following serious scrutiny of Twitter by the Indian government which expressed “strong displeasure” on Twitter’s inaction over user accounts, many politicians and celebrities exited the popular microblogging website and shifted to Koo.

The Centre had expressed “strong displeasure” on Twitter’s action regarding the alleged spread of “inflammatory content” and misinformation on the farmer protests. According to reports, top Twitter executives may now face arrest after the social media giant decided to put a hold on censoring of user accounts.

Source: India.com