The messenger WhatsApp, owned by the American Corporation Facebook, as of April 5, entered “end” encryption for all its users, whose number today exceeds 1 billion people. About the founders of the service Jan koum and Brian Acton wrote in a company blog.
“The security of users and their communication in the messenger has always been a priority for WhatsApp, but today we are happy to announce that we have completed the technological development, which will make WhatsApp a leader in the protection of your private correspondence: the complete “end” encryption”, — stated in the message.
It is about the way data protection when the source of the voice, text, photos, videos, and any other information transmitted through the communication channel, can be read only by the sender and the recipient and cannot be intercepted by third parties — whether it is cyber criminals, hackers, governments or employees of the WhatsApp. This type of encryption will be available now to all users of a WhatsApp update messenger to the latest version. It will also apply to group chats.
Encrypted correspondence, the founders of WhatsApp are considered “future personal communications”. Encryption is one of the most important tools used by governments, companies and individuals to ensure the safety and security of data transmission in a digital era, writing Acton and koum.
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Recently launched a sharp debate about services with elements of encryption and how their work should “make friends” with law enforcement, explain the founders of WhatsApp in your blog. They are reminiscent of recent Apple standoff with the FBI in the course of which the government Agency demanded the Corporation to “crack” the iPhone resident San Bernardino Seid Farouk, who in December 2015 killed 14 people.
In February 2016 Apple CEO Tim cook said that the US authorities want to get the tool to bypass the security on any Apple mobile device that would compromise the data privacy of all users of devices company in the world. The founder of WhatsApp Jan koum was among those leaders of technology companies that supported Apple in the conflict of the company with the FBI.
“While we recognize the importance of law enforcement in ensuring the safety of people, attempts to weaken encryption make private information more vulnerable. The desire to protect private communication is one of our core values personally and my WhatsApp writes koum. For me this is personal because I grew up in the USSR during the Communist rule and the fact that people could not speak freely, one of the reasons my parents moved to the United States”.
WhatsApp uses “end” encryption of 2014, but until this update it worked only on Android devices and only for personal conversations, the newspaper notes Vc.ru. This method of encryption is already working in “secret chats” Telegram messenger, created by the founder “Vkontakte” Pavel Durov. In this case, the General counsel of Apple, Bruce Sewell called Telegram in the course of the hearings in early March of this year, “one of the most harmful applications” because it is actively used by terrorists.
The popularity of Telegram among ISIS supporters (banned in Russia as a terrorist organization) also caused complaints from the Russian authorities. In early November last year, the first Deputy head of the constitutional Committee of the state Duma Alexander Ageev even has addressed in FSB with the request to forbid Telegram. The service Creator Pavel Durov, in turn, has offered in principle to prohibit the use of words. “I propose to ban words. There is information that they communicate to the terrorists,” he wrote. Despite the confrontation, the messenger Durov has started “delete” terrorists: Telegram has blocked over 660 channels of this group.
