WhatsApp gets full end-to-end encryption on all forms of communication on its service

hawker

hawker

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http://www.wired.com/2016/04/forget...ncryption-billion-people/?mbid=social_twitter

FOR MOST OF the past six weeks, the biggest story out of Silicon Valley was Apple’s battle with the FBI over a federal order to unlock the iPhone of a mass shooter. The company’s refusal touched off a searing debate over privacy and security in the digital age. But this morning, at a small office in Mountain View, California, three guys made the scope of that enormous debate look kinda small.

Mountain View is home to WhatsApp, an online messaging service now owned by tech giant Facebook, that has grown into one of the world’s most important applications. More than a billion people trade messages, make phone calls, send photos, and swap videos using the service. This means that only Facebook itself runs a larger self-contained communications network. And today, the enigmatic founders of WhatsApp, Brian Acton and Jan Koum, together with a high-minded coder and cryptographer who goes by the pseudonym Moxie Marlinspike, revealed that the company has added end-to-end encryption to every form of communication on its service.
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Seriously

Seriously

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Next the ANC will ban whatsapp and MTN will be happy forever.
 
scudsucker

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Seriously said:
Next the ANC will ban whatsapp and MTN will be happy forever.
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Do you ever have anything positive to say?

The encryption is great, though they are late to the party. I only hope "Moxie Marlinspike" does a better job than the Whatsapp guys did at first, with them using the same randomly generated encryption key to encrypt every single message in a given conversation. That's a bit dumb.
 
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d7e7r7

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I got a message on my whatsapp saying all messages to this contact are now encrypted. Anyone else get the same?

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scudsucker

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I assume it will come with an update. Mine is not yet telling me about encryption.
 
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d7e7r7

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Interesting that Moxie Marlinspike helped whatsapp with their encryption when he is part of the team that created Signal, a Whatsapp competitor.

Is Signal going to become obsolete now?
 
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RichardG

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Quiet frustrating when that pop up message was happening behind the scenes was thinking to myself did I touch a setting I wasn't suppose 2. Everyone knows that WhatsApp had encryption unlike back in the old days when it was easy to snoop messages.
 
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d7e7r7

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Is there any advantage of using Signal over Whatsapp now that Whatsapp is using the Signal protocol?
 
Seriously

Seriously

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scudsucker said:
Do you ever have anything positive to say?

The encryption is great, though they are late to the party. I only hope "Moxie Marlinspike" does a better job than the Whatsapp guys did at first, with them using the same randomly generated encryption key to encrypt every single message in a given conversation. That's a bit dumb.
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Sucking the rear scuds again?

I have no problem with whatsapp or encryption but I do have a problem with the ANC. :p

If you watched the national assembly re the Zupta impeachment what is there to be positive about?
 
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SlinkyMike

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The fact that a communication has taken place, in terms of analysis, is far lower hanging fruit than text mining.

For Facebook, knowing when and with whom you are communicating is very valuable data. Mining the text of your messages perhaps less so, as evidenced by this move.

I don't personally believe (based on their track record) that they'd voluntarily give up access to valuable personal data.
 
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