WhatsApp Messenger, commonly known simply as WhatsApp, is an American social media, instant messaging (IM), and Voice over IP (VoIP) service accessible via desktop and mobile app. Owned by Meta Platforms, the service allows users to send text messages, voice messages, and video messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other content. The service requires a cellular mobile telephone number to register. WhatsApp was launched in May 2009. In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app called WhatsApp Business which can communicate with the standard WhatsApp client. As of May 2025, the service had 3 billion monthly active users, making it the most used messenger app. The name of the app is meant to sound like "what's up". The service was created by WhatsApp Inc. of Mountain View, California, which was acquired by Facebook in February 2014 for approximately US$19.3 billion. It became the world's most popular messaging application in 2015, with 900 million users, and had more than 2 billion active users worldwide in February 2020. WhatsApp Business had approximately 200 million monthly users in 2023. By 2016, it had become the primary means of Internet communication in regions including the Americas, the Indian subcontinent, and large parts of Europe and Africa. == History == === 2009–2014 === WhatsApp was founded by Brian Acton and Jan Koum, former employees of Yahoo. Koum incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California on February 24, 2009. A month earlier, Koum had purchased an iPhone, and he and Acton decided to create an app for the App Store. The idea started off as an app that would display statuses in a phone's Contacts menu, showing if a person was at work or on a call. Their discussions often took place at the home of Koum's Russian friend Alex Fishman in West San Jose. They realized that to take the idea further, they would need an iPhone developer. Fishman visited RentACoder.com, found Russian developer Igor Solomennikov, and introduced him to Koum. Koum named the app WhatsApp to sound like "what's up" and it was published on the Apple App Store and BlackBerry App World in May and June 2009 respectively. However, when early versions of WhatsApp kept crashing, Koum considered giving up and looking for a new job. Acton encouraged him to wait for a "few more months". In June 2009, when the app had been downloaded by only a handful of Fishman's Russian-speaking friends, Apple launched push technology, allowing users to be pinged even when not using the app. Koum updated WhatsApp so that everyone in the user's network would be notified when a user's status changed. This new facility, to Koum's surprise, was used by users to ping "each other with jokey custom statuses like, 'I woke up late' or 'I'm on my way.'" Fishman said, "At some point it sort of became instant messaging". WhatsApp 2.0, released for iPhone in August 2009, featured a purpose-designed messaging component; the number of active users suddenly increased to 250,000. Although Acton was working on another startup idea, he decided to join the company. In October 2009, Acton persuaded five former friends at Yahoo! to invest $250,000 in seed funding, and Acton became a co-founder and was given a stake. He officially joined WhatsApp on November 1. Koum then hired a friend in Los Angeles, Chris Peiffer, to develop a BlackBerry version, which arrived two months later. Subsequently, WhatsApp for Symbian OS was added in May 2010, and for Android OS in August 2010. In 2010 Google made multiple acquisition offers for WhatsApp, which were all declined. To cover the cost of sending verification texts to users, WhatsApp was changed from a free service to a paid one. In December 2009, the ability to send photos was added to the iOS version. By early 2011, WhatsApp was one of the top 20 apps in the U.S. Apple App Store. In April 2011, Sequoia Capital invested about $8 million for more than 15% of the company, after months of negotiation by Sequoia partner Jim Goetz. By February 2013, WhatsApp had about 200 million active users and 50 staff members. Sequoia invested another $50 million at a $1.5 billion valuation. Some time in 2013 WhatsApp acquired Santa Clara–based startup SkyMobius, the developers of Vtok, a video and voice calling app. As of December 2013, the service had 400 million monthly active users. That year, the company had $148 million in expenses and a net loss of $138 million. === 2014–2015 === On February 19, 2014, one year after the venture capital financing round at a $1.5 billion valuation, Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms) agreed to acquire the company for US$19 billion, its largest acquisition to date. At the time, it was the largest acquisition of a venture-capital-backed company in history. Sequoia Capital received an approximate 5,000% return on its initial investment. Facebook paid $4 billion in cash, $12 billion in Facebook shares, and an additional $3 billion in restricted stock units granted to WhatsApp's founders Koum and Acton. Employee stock was scheduled to vest over four years subsequent to closing. Days after the announcement, WhatsApp users experienced a loss of service, leading to anger across social media. The acquisition was influenced by the data provided by Onavo, Facebook's research app for monitoring competitors and trending usage of social activities on mobile phones, as well as startups that were performing "unusually well". The acquisition caused many users to try, or move to, other message services. Telegram claimed that it acquired 8 million new users, and Line, 2 million. At a keynote presentation at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February 2014, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp was closely related to the Internet.org vision. A TechCrunch article said about Zuckerberg's vision:The idea, he said, is to develop a group of basic internet services that would be free of charge to use – "a 911 for the internet". These could be a social networking service like Facebook, a messaging service, maybe search and other things like weather. Providing a bundle of these free of charge to users will work like a gateway drug of sorts – users who may be able to afford data services and phones these days just don't see the point of why they would pay for those data services. This would give them some context for why they are important, and that will lead them to pay for more services like this – or so the hope goes. Three days after announcing the Facebook purchase, Koum said they were working to introduce voice calls. He also said that new mobile phones would be sold in Germany with the WhatsApp brand, and that their ultimate goal was to be on all smartphones. In August 2014, WhatsApp was the most popular messaging app in the world, with more than 600 million users. By early January 2015, WhatsApp had 700 million monthly users and over 30 billion messages every day. In April 2015, Forbes predicted that between 2012 and 2018, the telecommunications industry would lose $386 billion because of "over-the-top" services like WhatsApp and Skype. That month, WhatsApp had over 800 million users. By September 2015, it had grown to 900 million; and by February 2016, one billion. On November 30, 2015, the Android WhatsApp client made links to Telegram unclickable and not copyable. Multiple sources confirmed that it was intentional, not a bug, and that it had been implemented when the Android source code that recognized Telegram URLs had been identified. (The word "telegram" appeared in WhatsApp's code.) Some considered it an anti-competitive measure; WhatsApp offered no explanation. === 2016–2019 === On January 18, 2016, WhatsApp's co-founder Jan Koum announced that it would no longer charge users a $1 annual subscription fee, in an effort to remove a barrier faced by users without payment cards. He also said that the app would not display any third-party ads, and that it would have new features such as the ability to communicate with businesses. On May 18, 2017, the European Commission announced that it was fining Facebook €110 million for "providing misleading information about WhatsApp takeover" in 2014. The Commission said that in 2014 when Facebook acquired the messaging app, it "falsely claimed it was technically impossible to automatically combine user information from Facebook and WhatsApp." However, in the summer of 2016, WhatsApp had begun sharing user information with its parent company, allowing information such as phone numbers to be used for targeted Facebook advertisements. Facebook acknowledged the breach, but said the errors in their 2014 filings were "not intentional". In September 2017, WhatsApp's co-founder Brian Acton left the company to start a nonprofit group, later revealed as the Signal Foundation, which developed the WhatsApp competitor Signal. He explained his reasons for leaving in an interview with Forbes a year later. WhatsApp also
Wave Financial
Wave is a Canadian company that provides financial services and software for small businesses. Wave is headquartered in the East Bayfront neighbourhood in Toronto, Canada. The company's first product was free online accounting software designed for businesses with 1–9 employees, followed by invoicing, personal finance and receipt-scanning software (OCR). In 2012, Wave began branching into financial services, initially with Payments by Wave (credit card processing) and Payroll by Wave, followed in February 2017 by Lending by Wave, which has since been discontinued. == History == CEO Kirk Simpson and CPO James Lochrie launched Wave Accounting Inc. in July 2009, Wave Accounting launched to the public on November 16, 2010. In June 2011, Series A funding led by OMERS Ventures was closed. In September 2011, FedDev Ontario invested one million dollars in funding. In October 2011, a $5-million investment led by U.S. venture capital firm Charles River Ventures was announced. In May 2012, Wave Accounting closed its series B financing round led by The Social+Capital Partnership, with follow-on participation from Charles River Ventures and OMERS Ventures. Wave acquired a company called Small Payroll in November 2011, which was later launched as a payroll product called Wave Payroll. In February 2012, Wave officially launched Wave Payroll to the public in Canada, followed by the American release in November of the same year. In August, 2012, the company announced the acquisition of Vuru.co, an online stock-tracking service. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. In December 2012, the company rebranded itself as Wave to emphasize its broadened spectrum of services. On March 14, 2019, the company acquired Every, a Toronto-based fintech company that provides business accounts and debit cards to small businesses. On June 11, 2019, the company announced it was being acquired by tax preparation company, H&R Block, for $537 million. On June 15, 2022, Wave announced that Kirk Simpson would be leaving and being replaced as CEO by Zahir Khoja. In May 2025, US customers of Wave were transitioned to a new Payroll processing system supported by CheckHQ. The new integration improved support for US employers by handling employer tax withholding and payments in all 50 US States. == Products == The company's initial product, Accounting by Wave, is a double entry accounting tool. Services include direct bank data imports, invoicing and expense tracking, customizable chart of accounts, and journal transactions. Accounting by Wave integrates with expense tracking software Shoeboxed and e-commerce website Etsy. The next product launched was Payroll by Wave, which was launched in 2012 after the acquisition of SmallPayroll.ca. Payroll by Wave is only available in the US and Canada. Invoicing by Wave is an offshoot of the company's earlier accounting tools. Additional products launched on or shortly after the company's rebrand in December 2012 include: a credit card processing tool, Payments by Wave, built initially on integration with Stripe credit card processing. However, Wave does not report merchant fees correctly for countries where Stripe charges a tax such as GST. In these cases, the merchant fees are reported without tax and do not match your Stripe account. a receipt scanning tool, Receipts by Wave. In 2017, Wave signed an agreement to provide its platform on RBC's online business banking site. The RBC-Wave service will be co-branded. == Taxes supported == The company's software supports tax-exclusive pricing, such as U.S. sales tax, where taxes are added on top of prices quoted. This has two effects: When scanning receipts users must manually add the tax, and input the amount. When making an invoice, users must put in a price before tax, and the system will add the tax on top. This makes Wave unable to handle taxes in countries like Australia where prices must be quoted inclusive of all taxes, such as GST. There is no way to set an invoice total and have Wave calculate the tax portion as a percentage. == Pricing and business model == As of June 10, 2024, Wave offers two tiers for its software: a free Starter plan with limitations on some features, and a paid Pro plan. In addition to its paid plan, revenue from the company comes from other paid financial services the company offers: Payments by Wave: Card processing which includes debit, credit and prepaid cards as well as ACH (bank payments) in the United States. Fees are a percentage of the transaction. Payroll by Wave: Monthly subscription fee plus usage fees. Wave previously included advertising on its pages as a source of revenue. Advertising was removed in January 2017. In 2017, Wave raised $24m (USD) in funding led by NAB Ventures. In 2019, H&R Block announced the acquisition of Wave in a cash deal worth $405 million USD.
Information schema
In relational databases, the information schema (information_schema) is an ANSI-standard set of read-only views that provide information about all of the tables, views, columns, and procedures in a database. It can be used as a source of the information that some databases make available through non-standard commands, such as: the SHOW command of MySQL the DESCRIBE command of Oracle's SQLPlus the \d command in psql (PostgreSQL's default command-line program). => SELECT count(table_name) FROM information_schema.tables; count ------- 99 (1 row) => SELECT column_name, data_type, column_default, is_nullable FROM information_schema.columns WHERE table_name='alpha'; column_name | data_type | column_default | is_nullable -------------+-----------+----------------+------------- foo | integer | | YES bar | character | | YES (2 rows) => SELECT FROM information_schema.information_schema_catalog_name; catalog_name -------------- johnd (1 row) == Implementation == As a notable exception among major database systems, Oracle does not as of 2015 implement the information schema. An open-source project exists to address this. RDBMSs that support information_schema include: Amazon Redshift Apache Hive Microsoft SQL Server MonetDB Snowflake MySQL PostgreSQL H2 Database HSQLDB InterSystems Caché MariaDB SingleStore (formerly MemSQL) Mimer SQL Snowflake Trino Presto CrateDB ClickHouse CockroachDB Kinetica DB TiDB RDBMSs that do not support information_schema include: Apache Derby Apache Ignite Firebird Microsoft Access IBM Informix Ingres IBM Db2 Oracle Database SAP HANA SQLite Sybase ASE Sybase SQL Anywhere Teradata Vertica
DigitaltMuseum
DigitaltMuseum (lit. 'The Digital Museum') is a website database in Norwegian and Swedish for art, images and cultural history museums. The service was established in 2009 after a trial period. The database is developed and operated by KulturIT. KulturIT ANS was established by the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History and Maihaugen in consultation with the Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Authority (ABM) in 2007. In 2015, the company underwent a corporate transformation and KulturIT AS was established on 12 February. The website has per 2025 around 2,548,022 images. Many of the images are in the public domain or under Creative Commons licenses and are being imported into Wikimedia Commons. The website's API was developed in 2012. == Institutions == As of 2025, there are 223 collaborating museums. == Mission == DigitaltMuseum aims to make the museums' collections accessible to all interested parties, regardless of time and place. The website aims to facilitate easy use of the collections through various methods including image searches, research, teaching and joint knowledge development. DigitaltMuseum contains collections from several hundred Norwegian and Swedish museums, totalling around five million objects. The website contains both historical images from the areas and themes covered by the museums, as well as images of artefacts from the collections. Parts of the collection have previously only been shown in the museums' exhibitions and books and have therefore rarely or never been shown to the public.
System integrity
In telecommunications, the term system integrity has the following meanings: That condition of a system wherein its mandated operational and technical parameters are within the prescribed limits. The quality of an AIS when it performs its intended function in an unimpaired manner, free from deliberate or inadvertent unauthorized manipulation of the system. The state that exists when there is complete assurance that under all conditions an IT system is based on the logical correctness and reliability of the operating system, the logical completeness of the hardware and software that implement the protection mechanisms, and data integrity.
GNU social
GNU social (and its predecessor StatusNet) is a largely defunct free and open-source microblogging social networking service that implements the OStatus and ActivityPub standards for interoperability between installations. While offering similar functionality to social networks such as Twitter, GNU social seeks to provide the ability for open and federated communication between different microblogging communities, known as 'instances'. Both enterprises and individuals can install and control their own instances and user data. At its peak in popularity, GNU social had been deployed on hundreds of interconnected instances, however has since fallen into disuse as competing software like Mastodon and Pleroma have taken its position as the dominant federated microblogging services. Later on in its lifespan, the project split into two separate branches, with "v2" being a continuation of the original codebase for maintenance of existing instances, with "v3" being a complete redesign of the project meant to integrate further ActivityPub support and modernization of the user experience and its technological back-end. As of August 15, 2022, there had been no new commits to the v2 branch, with the v3 branch also no longer being actively developed not long after by November 25, 2022, with the project essentially abandoned. Despite its modern obsolescence and dated design compared to modern platforms, GNU social and StatusNet is regarded to be the origin of the Fediverse network and has had a major influence on the design of more modern decentralized social networks that succeeded it. == History == While being the main project within its lineage, GNU social originally began as a fork of StatusNet. The software was first developed for a service called identi.ca from Evan Prodromou, which offered free microblogging accounts to the public. The software quickly became one of the first popular examples of a decentralized social network, as identi.ca allowed any other server that was running the software to communicate with it, something which had not previously been attempted before in social media at such a large scale. === StatusNet === Originally, StatusNet (named Laconica at the time) was launched with a communication protocol designed specifically for the project called OpenMicroBlogging (OMB). With version 0.8.1, the name of the software was changed to StatusNet. Version 0.9.0 was released soon after in March 3, 2010, with the developers implementing a newly designed protocol dubbed OStatus, with support for OMB being dropped not long after. Compared to OpenMicroBlogging, OStatus could handle and federate more events and actions than the basic plaintext communication that OMB provided and was based on a variety of other web technologies, allowing for easier adoption of new implementations of the protocol for servers and clients compared to the fully custom architecture of OMB. With the StatusNet name change, the company developing both the software and OStatus as well as managing identi.ca rebranded from Control Yourself to StatusNet Inc. In August 2010, the company raised a new round of venture capital funds to establish a hosting service under the status.net domain from sources such as First Mark Capital, BOLDstart Ventures, iNovia Capital and Montreal Start Up, raising over $2.3 million in funding up to that point. The hosting service allowed anyone to establish their own StatusNet instance without maintaining a server, similar to WordPress.com and other blogging platforms. New registrations on identi.ca along with the ability to create new status.net instances was disabled in December 2012, in preparation for a migration to pump.io that has since been named by users of StatusNet and OStatus as "the Pumpocalypse". pump.io was a brand new software package like StatusNet, but with a new protocol designed for general purpose activity streams outside of microblogging and ease-of-use for developers building on the technology, much like the transition from OMB to OStatus. The announcement was seen as unexpected among identi.ca users, who were concerned about the possibility of their statuses being deleted with the transition. At the same time, server administrators running third-party instances and their users who were left behind on StatusNet were also worried, as it was unclear at the time whether future development of the software would be picked up by a new maintainer. The transition for identi.ca users to pump.io was completed on 12 July 2013. ==== Previous names ==== The original name of StatusNet was Laconica, a reference to the Laconic phrase; a particularly brief statement commonly attributed to the leaders of Sparta (Laconia being the Greek region containing Sparta). In microblogging, all messages are designed to be very short due to the traditional 140-character limit on message size, a limitation imported from SMS. Beginning with version 0.8.1, the name was changed to StatusNet. The developers said that the new name "simply reflects what our software does: send status updates into your social network." === GNU social === GNU social originally began as a side project of GNU FM (Libre.fm) maintainer Matt Lee, with the goal of being able to federate messages between Last.fm and other instances of GNU FM using StatusNet plugins. Around the same time, a developer named Mikael Nordfeldth forked StatusNet with the intention of maintaining it as a personal project, dubbing it "Free Social". However, following identi.ca's transition to pump.io and its developers' sudden abandonment of StatusNet, the projects received more attention from server administrators and other users looking for an actively updated alternative. Shortly after LibrePlanet 2012, a plan was formed to merge all three projects into a single service. On June 8, 2013, it was announced that along with Free Social, StatusNet would be merged into the GNU social project and stewarded by the Free Software Foundation, with the project since becoming the dominant variant of StatusNet. During GNU social's lifespan, a popular theme for the user interface named Quitter was used, which was similar to an earlier Twitter interface. Many instances were made specifically using the name Quitter such as Quitter.se, an instance created by the developer of the theme. Before the establishment of Mastodon's popularity and dominance within the network, Quitter was noted as a frequent location for users of Twitter to migrate to when users disagreed with moderation policies or feature updates, such as when an algorithmic feed was added to Twitter. A fork of GNU social was made called postActiv, which planned to rewrite the backend and user interface of GNU social, as well as to add compatibility for Diaspora's protocol. == Features == A basic GNU social instance takes the form of a microblogging service with a reverse chronological timeline that features status updates and small messages from followed accounts, similar to other services such as Twitter or Weibo. While users could see their own customized timeline, they could access another timeline that showcased every message that the instance knows of, including from other instances that were connected to each other if someone on the instance followed an account from it. Users could also create and join groups, which allows for discussion and collaboration on specific topics. Administrators can also customize their server via the plugin system, which allows developers to create new features or modify existing plugins to suit the needs of the instance via PHP. A notable plugin built for GNU social was Quitter, a revamp of the user interface that resembles an earlier version of Twitter's user interface.
Automated penetration testing
Automated penetration testing (also known as autonomous penetration testing or automated offensive security) is the application of software-driven workflows and orchestration to simulate cyberattack techniques. These methods are used to identify, validate, and exploit security vulnerabilities in IT assets such as networks, applications, and cloud infrastructure. Automated penetration testing is the use of software to simulate cyberattacks in order to rapidly identify exploitable vulnerabilities across systems without relying solely on human testers. In technical literature, the term describes a spectrum of activities ranging from scripted exploit orchestration to experimental systems designed for fully autonomous attack planning. Automated Penetration Testing falls short of testing using manual experts in terms of discovery of deep complex vulnerabilities and contextual business logic vulnerabilities. == Terminology and scope == The label “automated penetration testing” appears frequently in vendor and practitioner writing but lacks a single, neutral, standards-based definition. In the literature the term’s scope varies: some authors use it to mean automation of specific penetration-testing tasks (scanning, exploitation attempts, evidence collection), others to describe integrated, repeatable assessment pipelines, and a smaller body of work investigates autonomous decision-making agents that select attack steps algorithmically. To avoid implying consensus, this article describes common techniques and architectures reported in the literature and industry, and it notes where claims are primarily found in practitioner publications or early-stage research. Its important to note the differences between automated penetration testing and traditional penetration testing using human skill. The most important difference is scope and speed. Automated penetration testing generally fails at discovering exposures and weakness associated with business logic due to a lack of contextual understanding. The benefit of Automated Penetration testing is speed at which it can be conducted. Traditional penetration testing also is expected to be accurate and contain no false positives. This is due to the human validation aspect of the test. Automated approaches are expected to contain mistakes and false positives which need to be validated upon completion of the test. == History == Automated offensive techniques build on decades of tools and scripting that aided vulnerability discovery and exploitation. Early vulnerability scanners and community scripting in the 1990s and 2000s created the first layers of automation. Later, modular exploitation frameworks (notably Metasploit) integrated scanning and exploitation modules and made automated proof-of-concept attacks more accessible. Over the 2010s–2020s, as cloud platforms, APIs and continuous delivery practices increased the need for frequent validation, academic and industry interest in formalizing automated approaches also grew. == Methodologies and architectures == Descriptions in the literature and technical reports cluster automated capabilities into several overlapping models: Scripted/engineered playbooks (task automation): Predefined workflows or playbooks encode common attack paths (for example, web application exploit sequences or lateral-movement chains). These playbooks are designed to reproduce known techniques in a controlled way to validate exploitability and reduce manual repetition. Exploit-oriented orchestration: Automation orchestrates exploitation modules from established frameworks to perform controlled proof-of-concept attacks that confirm exploitability rather than simply flagging potential weaknesses. This approach can reduce false positives versus passive scanning when tests are run in an appropriately controlled environment. Orchestrated multi-tool pipelines: A coordinated toolchain integrates reconnaissance, vulnerability scanning, credential testing, exploitation modules and reporting. Data and state persist across stages so that multi-step workflows (e.g., discover → escalate → pivot) can be executed repeatably, approximating manual penetration-test methodologies at larger scale. Continuous / CI-integrated testing: Automation embedded in build or deployment pipelines (CI/CD) triggers assessments automatically on new builds, configuration changes, or on a schedule, supporting frequent, repeatable validation aligned with DevOps practices. Academic theses and experimental work describe CI/CD-integrated proof-of-concept systems for web applications and internal networks. Research on autonomous planning and learning: Recent academic work explores machine learning and reinforcement-learning approaches to select or prioritise attack steps, generate attack sequences, or optimize the testing path; these approaches are largely experimental and raise distinct validation and safety questions. == Tools and vendors == Automated penetration testing is provided by a mix of open-source projects, commercial platforms, and professional services. These often follow the penetration testing as a service (PTaaS) model, which integrates automated scanning with manual validation by security analysts. Examples of widely known tools and vendors in the space include exploitation frameworks such as Metasploit, commercial automated platforms and PTaaS providers, and specialist vendors that offer breach-and-attack simulation (BAS) or continuous testing capabilities. == Applications and deployment models == In industry practice, some organizations deploy automated techniques through dedicated security validation platforms rather than bespoke toolchains. These platforms are typically used for continuous or scheduled validation in pre-production or controlled environments and are often positioned alongside, rather than in place of, human-led penetration testing. Examples discussed in secondary literature include platforms such as Pentera, which are commonly classified under breach-and-attack simulation or automated security validation rather than as standalone penetration-testing methodologies.