According to the test results of audio tech lab AudioLabs in 2023, gbwhatsapp provides real-time voice modulation functionality via the implementation of a third-party voice modifier engine (e.g., Voicemod SDK), and there are 8 built-in effects (e.g., robot, alien, muffled). The frequency adjusting range is ±300Hz (the official WhatsApp does not provide this feature). Tests of the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra indicate that audio processing latency increases to 0.7 seconds (native voice transfer latency is 0.3 seconds) and CPU load increases by 12% (Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 peak load is 38%). Users can choose to adjust the pitch parameters (-12 to +12 semitones), but outside ±8 semitones the speech distortion rate is more than 21% (measured by the PESQ speech quality score).
Based on Counterpoint, approximately 13% of gbwhatsapp users globally will use voice change during 2022, 62% in entertainment environments (e.g., spoof calls) and 28% in business environments (e.g., anonymous customer service). In Indonesia, for example, online sellers using “low mode” to conceal identity to handle complaints increased daily call volume by 17% and customer satisfaction by 9% (based on 2,000 responses using SurveyMonkey). This did, nonetheless, have the impact of applying a circa 35% increment to the size of an individual voice message (from a mean of 16KB to 21.6KB), and increasing the failure rate to 44% on 2G networks (against 19% unmodulated).
In terms of technical implementation, gbwhatsapp uses real-time DSP (digital signal processing) algorithm, the sampling rate is fixed at 16kHz, the bit rate is 96kbps, and the FFT (fast Fourier transform) frame length is set to 256 points, resulting in a high frequency detail loss rate of about 8.3% (compared to 3.1% of professional tools such as Audacity). In the telecom fraud involving the gang, which was dismantled by Brazilian police in 2023, the criminal organization used gbwhatsapp voice alteration feature to mimic the executive voice line, worth $1.2 million, and the correctness of voice forgery detection was only 57% (by voice print identification system of Biometric Security Systems).
Regarding privacy threats, Trend Micro’s security network company found that the voice converter module of gbwhatsapp has a memory overflow bug (CVE-2023-30529) that allows attackers to inject malicious code to steal the original sound with a hijacking success rate of 4.7% (0.1% for the genuine client). For example, hackers attacked user devices in September 2022 by mimicking a “Children’s Sound Pack” add-on, hijacking 12,000 unmodulated voices every day. When the users enable end-to-end encryption, the voice decryption failure rate upon voice change is up to 33% because of metadata tampering, which forces the developers to implement a hot fix patch v10.2 that lowers the error rate to 9%.
Compared to professional voice change solutions, gbwhatsapp lacks voice processing efficiency. For example, Voicemod Desktop includes 32 effects with latency of just 0.2 seconds but at an additional $29.99 per year; The free gbwhatsapp version supports only real-time rendering of Bluetooth headsets (e.g., SONY WH-1000XM5) and is supported on devices only above Android 9 (78% coverage). Tests found that its “echo effect” produced 0.5 seconds of echo in 5 meters, resulting in Speech recognition accuracy being reduced from 91 percent to 74 percent (with the Google Speech-to-Text API).
In terms of legal compliance, Meta modified WhatsApp Terms of Service in 2023 to explicitly prohibit third-party clients from modifying voice streams, resulting in a 29% year-over-year increase in gbwhatsapp user account blocks. If more than 5 voice change messages are sent per day, there is a 63% probability of triggering the risk control system (based on IP and behavior pattern analysis). The options of utilizing an independent voice changer App (such as VoiceFX) and importing gbwhatsapp reduce the block risk to 11% but increase the process time 2.3 times (from 7 seconds to 16 seconds per piece).
Hardware compatibility information shows that when gbwhatsapp voice change function is running in low-end devices (for example, Redmi 9A), the probability of audio intermittent is 38%, and the temperature is increased by 4.2 ° C (ambient temperature is 25 ° C). The programmers recommend turning off the “High Quality audio” option (the bit rate is reduced to 64kbps) to keep the CPU usage below 15%, but the speech naturalness rating (MOS) drops from 4.1 to 3.2 out of 5. The median claim for business loss due to miscommunication caused by the voice change feature in the Philippines in 2024 was $5,200.
