International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security (IJCSIS),
Vol. 14, No. 11, November 2016
WhatsApp: A Technique to Halt Intrusive Group Join Request and its
Analysis, Designing and Development
Hidayatullah Shaikh, Asadullah Kehar, Mashooq Hussain Mahar, Farhan Ali Surahio, Awais Khan Jumani
Department of Computer Science, Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur Mirs, Sindh,Pakistan
hidayat.shaikh@salu.edu.pk, asad.kehar@salu.edu.pk, mashooq.mahar@salu.edu.pk, farhan_surahio@yahoo.com, awaisjumani@yahoo.com
Abstract— WhatsApp is an instant messaging application
and it has been slaking thirst of soul mates for exchanging
information and sharing important stuff by using Group Chat.
Moreover, it provides well secured communication channel
along with an encryption. But, it has not provided yet any
mechanism, which protects intrusive join group request. Indeed,
user sends join group request to recipient and it adds into chat
inbox without its permission. Doing so two deficit arises,
downloading starts automatically, besides loss of internal or
external storage space too. It is not possible that recipient
always accept the request of unknown person, who may not have
met before. The aim of this paper is to present a technique for
accepting those requests who wants recipients and protect
intrusively one. Experimental results will show that by using this
technique, WhatsApp can provide better facility to obstacle such
kind of those requests, which never knocks before coming in.
Keywords— Instant messaging Application; Group Chat;
Privacy
I. INTRODUCTION
Several instant messaging applications are available
including, Viber, Line, WebChat, Telegram but, WhatsApp is
more friendly environment as compare to others and in excess
of 500 million users and beyond 20 billion messages sent and
receive per day in 2014[1]. It is providing fun-based learning
for students. By using this, students and teachers have been
sharing and exchanging important material in the form of
images, video and audios, portable documents thus, making
the communication effective.
Furthermore, this Smartphone application also provides a
track to make business deals. While sending and receiving
images of the products and sharing information about products
specification or its rates and other characteristic, partners are
making deals successful. On the other hand, it provides a
lectures recording facility to students or other type of material,
which is not able to understand easily via chatting. Lot of
features has been introduced by WhatsApp and the efforts of
its team are being continued for providing more convenient
and user friendly options to their users. Likewise, Users can
make a call to friend or family members free under the internet
data plan. This social media instant messaging application has
provided most of features regarding to privacy and security,
which help to users for blocking unwanted recipients contacts,
and sends notifications when a contact security code has
changed.
413
Moreover, this cross- platform mobile messaging application
provides an official version for Windows and OSX. By
connecting Smartphone with PC [2], users are able to do all
same activities with this version. It makes easy to use and also
gives several version for connecting it via mobile
configuration. WhatsApp has grounded with a number of
options regarding to sharing information including broadcast
list, group chat, starred messages and status. Each option has
its own characteristics. Status provides facility to update their
current position in the shape of status by choosing current
status label.
WhatsApp has been considered easiest and cheapest instant
messaging application.
It has no doubt that wide rich set of features are available in
WhatsApp but, despite users are facing problem while getting
group join invitation request from unknown persons and it
keeps place in their private chat inbox without their
permission. This paper presents a technique for preventing
from unwanted or intrusive group join requests.
II. GROUP CHAT
WhatsApp has an incredible feature entitled with Group Chat,
which allow users to send the same message to multiple
contacts without typing repetition. Students and teacher are
mostly using this feature for exchanging information and
sharing data in the form of Audios, Videos, Images and
portable documents. It gives immersive pleasure to send
images while traveling, members of group chat can see their
moments. Likewise, several companies are making business
deals by sending and receiving product images throughout this
feature. It is slightly difficult to identify genuine companies,
because recipient gets several request from unknown numbers
as well accompanied with company monogram intrusively.
On the other hand same problem are facing by recipients, they
get several unknown requests and without their permission it
takes place in their private chat inbox. Despite, it is being
frequently used by users.
III. PRIVACY
WhatsApp Privacy is one of the most important feature, which
enables users to create barriers and manage boundaries to
protect themselves from intrude. It allows users to negotiate
how to interact with world around us. It helps to create
boundaries to limit who has access to our profile and other
https://sites.google.com/site/ijcsis/
ISSN 1947-5500
 International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security (IJCSIS),
Vol. 14, No. 11, November 2016
type of information. In WhatsApp, there are many Account
privacy concern regarding to personal information some are
given below.
 Last Seen: it shows the status of the user online or
when they were using WhatsApp last time.
 Profile Photo: it helps to make a user photo visible or
invisible. By choosing no body option, users can
make their profile images hide or unhide.
 Status: this feature helps to users for showing their
expression in the form of status. By choosing
appropriate option, users can hide or unhide their
status.
 Blocked contacts: it helps to block unwanted
contacts. Messages sent by blocked contact will not
show on phone and never delivered to recipients.
WhatsApp has given us different privacy features, which are
some common has discussed above. “Fig.1.” illustrates its
graphical representation.
Fig.1. Shows list of privacy features
IV. RELATED WORK
Lot of work has been done by researchers regarding to
WhatsApp tools, techniques and its usage impact on society
but, it is observed that few work has available related to
privacy technique. Swapnil.S [3] has identified the problem
that, WhatsApp users are not able to send and receive text file
414
while chatting over the internet and provided a technique for
sending text file without compression. On the other hand,
Kavisha.D [4] has proposed a tool entitled with Last seen time
stamp. It updates via internet access time rather than fetch the
time, when the message actually sent. In addition to, Priya.M
[5] has proposed a methodology to provide instant messaging
service over the intranet by using android Smartphone for
WhatsApp. Proposed method was based on sending/receiving
messages in intranet throughout WI-FI connection without
adopting any mobile service. Likewise, Jason.W [6] has
worked on SMS and Call logs effectiveness and collected
truth relation data from 40 participants. Interviews revealed
several explanations and indicate primarily challenges for
inferring tie strength from communication log. Moreover,
Said.F [7] has worked on effectiveness of students developed
writing skills via mobile learning technique. Second year 30
college students were selected from English department from
private Saudi Arabia University. The study revealed
significant effects on student’s writing skills. Furthermore,
Chokri.B [8] has discussed on effects of WhatsApp mobile
learning activities and explored effectiveness of mobile
technologies in supporting blended learning courses. The
result tested with 34 students by using learning process based
on continuity between 2 hours of in-class learning and 1 hour
learning activities mediated by WhatsApp instant messaging
each week. Likewise, Cosimo.A [9] has provided description
of all the artifacts generated by WhatsApp and discussed on
decoding and interpretation. The study expressed how users
can be correlated together to surmise various type of
information that can be obtained by considering each one of
them in isolation. In addition to, Jyoti.K [10] has discussed on
usage and consumer satisfaction by using WhatsApp. Young
professionals were selected disrespect of the gender, age and
income. The study revealed the positivity of marketing and
gave some suggestion on video calls and privacy. Likewise,
Izyani.B [11] has examined WhatsApp learning tool and
highlighted how the tool could help the students to enhance
their language learning. It has also investigated the
significance of using the tool. Quantitative data were collected
and achieved successful results. Moreover, Michael.S [12] has
investigated group based communication paradigm in
WhatsApp. The study highlighted modeling and simulating
communication in groups and suggested novel traffic
management mechanism can be designed and evaluated in
order to better cope with network demands. Furthermore,
Sunil.K [13] has proposed a general development model for
measuring the social informing applications and its utilization.
The study revealed privacy policies, advance features, ease of
access, publicity and response time.
V. PROPOSED WORK
In our proposed work, presented technique has tested with
web application and its flowchart is given in “Fig.2”
accompanied by phases and its description.
https://sites.google.com/site/ijcsis/
ISSN 1947-5500
 International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security (IJCSIS),
Vol. 14, No. 11, November 2016

Fig.3. Shows group permission options

Fig.2. Flowchart of our proposed technique

Initially, we have inserted first record having status “Server”

and RemoteKeyID 1 by default. Furthermore, 1999 records
inserted accompanied with status “Client” and assigned
unique ID to each user. Status and RemoteKeyID are the fields
of Users_Registration table. So when a User sends a join
group request to server, which is already login as a Server
status with by default RemoteKeyID 1, it checks the condition,
if both conditions are true, because each user has assigned a
RemoteKeyID>1, it generates a message, which asks
permission, if permission is granted by recipient. Group will
be inserted into Users_Group table and it takes place into chat
inbox along with received acknowledgement else, user will be
blocked until it release by recipient.
SQL Server is used as back end and Visual Studio under C#
language along with ASP.Net has used as a front end.
Moreover, Cascade Style Sheet plays an important role while
creating web application Graphical User Interface for basis of
analyzing the technique. Fig.4. Displays generated message

“Fig.3” shows group permission with three options. It enables

VI. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
As we discussed earlier that, WhatsApp privacy has given lot
of features including, last seen, profile photo, status and
blocked contacts. We have added another feature Group
Permission, by choosing it user is able to set the permission,
which contains on “Nobody”, “Everyone” and “Contacts”.
Presented technique has tested in Local Area Network (LAN)
environment, where 10 clients are connected with D-Link 16
port DES-1016A Switch. In addition to, during sending join
group request from client to server, it generates “SQL
Network Interface, error: 26”.
For this, SQL port 1433 and SQL browser port 1434 have
added in firewall inbound, which permits to client for sending
request to server.
Data Manipulation Language (DML) and Data Definition
Language (DDL) are used to insert, delete, retrieve, modify
and update data in SQL Server database. Experimental results
in pictorial form are given in “Fig.3.”, “Fig.4” and “Fig.5”.
to server, which is already login as a server status and it is
recipient. Nobody option is already inserted with default
RemoteKeyID=1. “Fig.4” shows that client has sent a group
join request and it generates message. By choosing allow it
will add into Users_Group table. Users can also deny the
request and it will be added into table as a block contact.
CONCLUSION
WhatsApp is an easiest and cheapest instant messaging
application. Sending plain text messages, sharing images and
documents are daily routine activity of users. It has provided
several features including, starred message, blocked contacts,
making video calls and recording. Despite, it has noticed that,
there is no any option available for protecting intrusive group
join request. Once unknown person sends a request, it adds
into private chat inbox without their permission. We have
presented a technique, and it provides a facility to obstacle
such kind of request, which never knocks before coming in.
This technique will be fruitful for WhatsApp users.

415 https://sites.google.com/site/ijcsis/
ISSN 1947-5500
 International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security (IJCSIS),
Vol. 14, No. 11, November 2016

REFERENCES [13] Sunil.K.K, Karishma.N,”General Maturity Model for

Social Messaging Application”, IEEE, Conference on
Reliability, Infocom Technologies and Optimization
[1] Andreas.B, Bastian.K, Andreas.N, Florian.S, Matthias.S,
(ICRITO) (Trends and Future Directions), pp.1-5, Sep, 2015
Frank.K “Privacy Implications of Presence Sharing in Mobile
Messaging Applications”, International Conference on
Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia (MUM), pp. 1-10, 2014

[2] Kehinde.F.M, “WhatsApp and Information Sharing:

Prospect and challenges” International Journal of Social
Science and Humanities Research, vol.4, No.1, pp.615-625

[3] Swapnil. S, Dilip.M, “Compressed Chatting Over

Internet”, International Journal of Computer Applications,
vol. 106- No.7, pp. 1-5, November 2014

[4] Kavisha.D, Reema.L, “Step-Up towards Privacy and

Connectivity Concerns in WhatsApp”, Internation Journal of
Computer Science and Information Technology & Security,
vol.4, No.2, April 2014

[5] Priya.M, Tanshi.P, Payal.J, “Instant Messaging Service

on Android Smartphone’s and Personal Computers”,
International Journal of Information and Computation
Technology, vol.4, N3, pp. 265-272, 2014

[6] Jason.W, Jun.K.M, Jason.I.H, John.Z “Assessing Call and

SMS Logs as an Indication of Tie Strength”, Human-
Computer Interaction Institute School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon”, CMU-HCII-14-101, May 2014

[7] Said.F.EL.S.A.F, "The Effectiveness of Using WhatsApp

Messenger as One of Mobile Learning Techniques to
Develop Students' Writing Skills" Journal of Education and
Practice Vol.6, No.32, pp.115-127, 2015

[8] Chokri.B, "The effectiveness of WhatsApp mobile

learning activities guided by activty theory on students'
knowledge management." Contemporary Educational
Technology, Vol.6, No.3, pp.221-238, 2015

[9] Cosimo.A, "Forensic analysis of WhatsApp Messenger on

Android smartphones", Digital Investigation Jounal, vol.11,
No.3, pp. 201-213, 2014

[10] Jyoti.K, “Customer satisfication towards WhatsApp in

Lucknow”, International Journal Of Innovative Research in
Technology”, vol.1, No.10, pp.1-8, 2014

[11] Izyani.B.M, “Students Perception on the use of

WhatsApp as a Learning tool in ESL Classroom”, Journal of
Education and Social Science, vol.4, pp.96-104, June, 2016

[12] Michael.S, Tobias.H, Anika.S, Valentin.B,

Phuoc.T.G,“Group-Based Communication in WhatsApp”,
IoP Workshop co-located with Networking, pp.536-541,
2016

416 https://sites.google.com/site/ijcsis/
ISSN 1947-5500