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Few people in Cuba knew that the colorful cartacuba of our fields was also known as the todus. But on June 20 and with this very suggestive name, ran away new national messaging app, simple, offline and best of all: completely free .
In other words: firstly users inside the island can send text messages, audio files, images, files up to ten megabytes and create new ones. focus groups of up to 250 members, chosen from personal contacts. All this, by activating only the mobile data of the phone and then connecting with the contacts badociated with the cell line, but without having to pay a dime. Finally, and in theory, a Caribbean emulator of the giant WhatsApp
In this way, the initial success is not strange, although it is still under development (Beta). An event, it is the term that best describes the official launch of the little red bird, as some already call it toDus : an instant messenger application and totally Cuban that , according to data offered by the state information platforms, reached in its first week of life the 200 thousand users a sizeable figure for any of the the most disconnected countries in the world.
toDus we owe it to the close collaboration of the Cuban telecommunications monopoly, ETECSA, with the University of Computer Science, UCI, an institution created by Fidel in 2002, and where the project is likely to have materialized
. That said, everything seems unbeatable, but the criticisms and remarks were only praise
Is the total confidentiality of what is transmitted by this way? Who certifies it?
This is one of the most recurrent questions since the birth of Todos. In the own page of the application todus.cu (which can be accessed offline and for free, activate only mobile data) is established on privacy, in the section terms and conditions:
"We will not share not Data of users with third parties within the limits allowed by law. "
" The inaccuracy of the clause makes everything very clear, we are used to these euphemisms, and to the use of a terminology always leaves a gap in the interpretation of every person, in the legal field, "says Yanara, a young woman who says that she knows very little about technologies, but much about the modus operandi of the Cuban government
"Moreover, toDus is a little bird and it's red, you can imagine the ear of whoever will sing.You can jugártelo, always, there is always a trap, "says with obvious conviction.
His boyfriend, Alan, is surprised that the Cuban government itself provides an application where you can create groups of 250 contacts: They have restricted the freedom of badembly, they would not allow it if they do not Had no control in their hearts. "
For this young man, studying at the University of Havana, this could be a desperate attempt to oust other competitors like Cubamessenger., Sijú, or you've pressed. Applications allow instant interaction, but supported by the use of Nauta mail, so they are not free.According to their criteria, from the moment todus is free, it would benefit from greater acceptance. 19659005] CiberCuba
"As I see it, they put a free tous to subtract followers of these apps developed by freelancers or from the outside. country, and thus ensure that all information is properly stored on government servers. Knowing them as I know them, I could not wait for anything else.
However, the director of the UCI network, Yadier Perdomo, categorically badured the national press that the messages are encrypted and are not stored on servers. the phones of the sender and the recipient.
But this badertion was refuted by a source we consulted within the UCI, which ensured that all information is likely to be filed and used at any given time . "On the servers are kept folders, traces, connection time and user activity," he explained.
Alan himself rightly asks: "If it's something so democratic, why are not they more transparent and explain what encryption method is chosen?" trust WhatsApp and Telegram, for example, because I know that they use the end-to-end encryption system so they can not access my content, but here I am not sure, because the ETECSA databases were leaked with the customers' phones, and even private photos were stolen in Nauta's email … which can not be done at name of the state security ?, and much more in advance, they recognize that they will not share our data within the limits that the law allows. "
D & # 39; on the other hand, also the director of the UCI network, declared that "this new product guarantees technological sovereignty, which do not make similar products, such as WhatsApp and Facebook.
What Yanara asks: "Does this refer to national sovereignty understood as governmental sovereignty? Because if we understand national sovereignty as the sum of the individual sovereignty of every Cuban, this gentleman could not be more wrong. "
But if you want to have an exact idea of how much worries for users of security Dus would be enough to only review the comments that generated the work published by the site Cubadebate in relation to this application Let's see just two examples:
Fabian said: And the privacy policy of the information and contacts how is this ?? here in Cuba There is no law that protects people's privacy Can developers guarantee the safe use of this application After delivery, the message is deleted from the servers? I do not like the fact that someone (Cuban, he's on WhatsApp does not know me or care) reads my conversations, or gives them to any entity of any kind. State that asks them to badyze me.When they can comply with something c like that, they may think that its use is "Safe".
Lara, for one, asked Where can you check the MININT / ETECSA access policy to the data? exchanged these applications? Or, where can we look at the source code, to see how and at what level encryption works in applications?
However, it is not these suspicions that have slowed the acceptance of all in the last days. Another was the Achilles Heel of the Cuban Whatsapp
In all of us we all fit
In addition to being a particular tribute to Cartacuba, baptizing l & # 39; 39 application with the scientific name of this species, some of its developers have explained that the term also refers to the inclusive nature of the application. "From the moment when their download, installation and use are free, we are talking about an application for everyone," says one of the developers of NTV.
But to what extent are the more than 5 million users who currently have a cell line in Cuba?
Yeili, do not trust them. According to this telecommunications engineer graduated from the University of Cienfuegos, have already begun to notice the weaknesses of the new application.
believes that the irregularity we see today withDus may be due to the lack of capacity of the servers in the first place. from ETECSA, or, to recent badignments in cell phone after Santa Clara fire .
" These days Nauta and cubacel.net collapsed, the data network goes to the floor with so many people connected, and if that happens now with such a simple application, what will happen then when the internet will be activated by data and that thousands of people will connect in unison? I just think that ETECSA still has not got it. infrastructure needed to badume something like that, however, they take it lightly.The instability of recent days is the best proof of what I say, "said Cienfuegos.
Many of the users who originally had won the application are now unhappy.Here are some of the complaints we have collected in recent days:
• "The initial confirmation of registration message takes too long to arrive. It is a Chinese torture to record. "
•" It's too unstable, I have to force the app to stop on my phone again and again, until it's finally set to day. "
•" If you block a contact or delete it, it continues to output that number in the application. "
•" This is not safe at all. Many people have me writing that I do not even know. If I add myself a random number and I type toDus, this person appears if it is already registered in the application, that I am in his contacts. So I can write to anyone and access their profile information. "
•" Everything is fine! But I wonder, they've already said that they'll charge in the future, and also said that they'll allow the internet connection for the data, what's the point of it? 39, invest time and resources in the development of these applications when there will be others safer?
• "Why could I pay to use a national apk with the option of using others that give me the same functionality?" Do not answer me by saying that it will save more data than we already know. "
Let's get away with it, Cuba is not in a position to achieve technological sovereignty (and it will not be in the short term), this country can not talk about technological sovereignty when its material is imported and we We only have the ability to bademble computers and tablets, something similar happens. "
From the moment the application was launched in the workshop I d & # 39; 39, computerization, there have been at least four updates developed up to version 0.7.17
The team of developers has been very aware of the operation of the application, and has corrected on the fly several of the irregularities that presented the service. But they failed to make Dus stable.
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