Thursday, April 07, 2016

WhatsApp and the backdoor battle...

If you've used the messaging app WhatsApp today you should have seen a message saying this: "Messages you send to this chat and calls are secured with end-to-end encryption."

What that means is nobody - not the police, hackers, GCHQ, not even WhatsApp or its owner Facebook - can read the conversations between you and your contacts.

Given the sheer scale of the WhatsApp network this is obviously a major step forward for privacy, with a billion people around the world now secure from snooping. But prepare for a confrontation between WhatsApp and governments which will make the recent battle between Apple and the FBI over unlocking an iPhone look like a mild tiff.

Law enforcement agencies know that a system where they can get access to a suspect's messages on presentation of a judge's warrant to a telecoms provider is now broken. They may get the warrant - but WhatsApp will be able to shrug its shoulders and say we don't have a key. You may suspect that someone is sending obscene images of children or planning a terror attack, but we can't help you. The police and security agencies believe this makes their job a lot harder. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Facebook's WhatsApp strengthens encryption for 1 billion users...
  2. Facebook, Google, and WhatsApp are all planning to increase encryption...
  3. John Oliver on Encryption (Apple vs The FBI)
  4. First they came for the iPhones...
  5. The power of privacy...
  6. Theresa May wants to see your internet history, so we thought it was only...
  7. Give us back our data...
  8. Coded, secret, encrypted technology, a boon for privacy: “going dark” and...

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