The debate involving Apple and the FBI has reignited the issue of privacy, prompting not only the directly involved parties to take action.
Yesterday, WhatsApp announced the introduction of end-to-end encryption for all messages exchanged on its platform.
As a preventive measure, for instance, in case some governments decide to request access to messages exchanged by certain individuals, Zuckerberg has decided to completely secure the contents and information exchanged.
All, absolutely all, messages exchanged on the platform will be encrypted and, therefore, inaccessible to anyone trying to read them, without exceptions; neither malicious actors, governments, nor employees of the company will have access, and there will be no “backdoors” or “emergency exits.”
The decision made in recent days regarding end-to-end encryption is part of an encryption project that began some time ago; in fact, it dates back to the end of 2014, the year Zuckerberg acquired the app founded by Jan Koum and Brian Acton.
Yesterday, the company finally posted on its blog the news of the project’s completion, which involves messages, voice calls, individual and group chats, photos, and videos.
Just like all face-to-face conversations, there is no way to retrieve, reproduce, or intercept them, and the same applies to messages and information exchanged on WhatsApp. This, in essence, is the goal of end-to-end encryption.
The message informing us of the higher security levels of the service is gradually reaching all of us (we are talking about a billion users). For example, I haven’t received it yet, but from what I found online, it should look like this: