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Update #2: Appears that since almost beginning of the year, Viber on Alfa network is working again. Had to wait for a period of time before confirming. Seems like the ministry changed its mind after all.
Update: Please check Viber's official response below in the comments.
Yes... That's true. One day I was using viber to connect with my family abroad, the next day my viber status indicates "disconnected". I asked my friends to check if their viber was disconnected... Nopes. Theirs is working perfectly fine. Hmmm what's wrong?
I go back home, use my wireless, and bammm... it connects again. Sooo the issue has to do with my alfa line. Fair enough.. They have a problem I say to myself. Next day, same issue. I call alfa,...
Alfa: Viber is blocked in Lebanon
Me: May I know why?
Alfa: No. Ministry of communications has decided to block it.
Me: But I would like to know why.
Alfa: We cannot say.
Me: How come MTC and my DSL provider have not blocked it yet.
Alfa: They eventually will block it. Its the ministry's decision... It will be enforced.
Two days before the above, I received a newsletter linking to this article "ما لا تعرفونه عن برنامج المحادثات المجاني “Viber”!" : http://goo.gl/DLu4e . I linked the blockage on Viber to this news.
To cut the story short, it appears Viber is owned by an Israeli-American and its head quarters are in Cyprus, and concludes that since it is a free application and ad-free application, the only reason it was created was to "spy" on its users. The article discusses more reasons to question Viber.
This whole story made me think of two main things. The first is that a simple article in an online news site can lead to a decision from the ministry to block a major application that is used by hundreds of thousands in Lebanon to contact their dear ones.The ministry did not publish any reasons for this block, nor did it inform the Lebanese mobile users. I, as a user of the application, would like to know whether I was being spied on or not. Has the ministry done its research and confirmed the issue or is the blockage just based on rumors? I believe that we have the right to know.
Secondly and most importantly, and that's why this is posted on a security blog is to remind myself before others that all these applications we install on our phones should not be blindly trusted. We grant these applications access to our phone books, messages, instant messages, photos, location..... Can you imagine what one of those application creators could know about your life? Just a thought.
