Many connectivity and mobile telephony providers apply the concept of zero-rating to the most popular applications. For example, some companies already offer free traffic on TikTok under certain plans, and WhatsApp is also part of that select group. Developer Aleix Rodríguez Alameda decided to experiment with this after traveling through South America, and the result is Wa-tunel, a project to create HTTP tunnels via WhatsApp, using two accounts.
The practice of zero-rating is often exposed in exchanges linked to net neutrality. From a philosophical point of view, we are facing two antagonistic ideas, but we cannot deny the fact that zero-rating provides an advantage to the user under certain conditions.
For example, developer Aleix Rodríguez Alameda was traveling through South America and personally experienced the pain of dealing with local providers... that offer WhatsApp under zero-rating. There his light bulb went off: Why not create an HTTP tunnel through WhatsApp, and take advantage of its zero-rating status to browse for free? The idea became a project, and it's called Wa-tunel.
Wa-tunel: An HTTP Tunnel Through WhatsApp
Aleix explains that the system needs access to two WhatsApp accounts, one for the server, and another for the client. The configuration is not complicated for someone with a bit of experience, but it's not something the average user can activate in a couple of clicks. At the same time, Wa-tunel must maintain a very delicate balance. The magic number seems to be 20,000 characters per message: a lower number can lead to a block by WhatsApp, while a higher number causes timeout errors. Aleix's first accounts were banned.
The project is certainly a work in progress, and has some very interesting goals ahead. Wa-tunel is based on Baileys (WhatsApp Web API), which currently does not support calls, but in the future could allow a tunnel in Wa-tunel using that route. The final speed is not very fast, to say the least (300 kilobits per second), but more than enough to read emails and visit mobile versions of some sites.
Official site: Click here.
Source: Hackaday.
