Discontinuation note

As of Whatsapp Web version 2.2114 this script is broken. For details see #3.

WhatsappMonitor

About

WhatsappMonitor monitors the online times of selected contacts and displays them as a graph. It's original purpose was to show how even tiny pieces of personal information like whether you're using Whatsapp just now can become scarily powerful if it's collected and evaluated. Running this script for an extended period of time can give sensitive knowledge about personal behavior of the monitored contacts like sleep routines, work times and correspondence with others.

Installation

Install WhatsappMonitor

git clone https://github.com/ErikTschierschke/WhatsappMonitor.git
cd WhatsappMonitor
pip install -r requirements.txt

Install geckodriver

On Linux you can run sudo gecko-install.sh to automatically install geckodriver.

Download geckodriver for your operating system and extract it to a PATH directory (e.g. linux: /usr/bin, win: C:\Windows)

Run WhatsappMonitor

python3 whatsappmonitor.py

Warning!

• Running this script without informing the monitored contacts is ethically questionable. You should only use it for scientific purposes on privy contacts.

• The script violates Whatsapp's Terms of Service. Running it may result in the account being disabled. Never run it on your primarily used account.

• The script causes some side effects to the used Whatsapp account:

  • The used account will be online itself the whole time.
  • Messages received by monitored contacts will be marked as "read" for them (blue ticks) and may not generate "new message" notifications on your phone.

Disclaimer

Running this script is at own risk and without any liability.