It’s used by many more minors, and it’s easy to jump from Facebook’s mainstream platform into Messenger, and thus there is a clear danger that it can be used to groom the vulnerable. And many in the government security community recognize that while this will help its own investigators, it will also put at risk the hundreds of millions around the world that rely on WhatsApp (and Signal and iMessage and Telegram’s secret messages) to stay safe from their own authorities.īut preventing an expansion of this encryption is a different matter-especially when you consider the critical differences between WhatsApp and Messenger, which is multi-platform, doesn't require a phone number or even a phone to use, and so is easier to use anonymously and by minors.Īnd so, there are some sensible arguments for keeping Messenger outside the default end-to-end encryption used by WhatsApp. “There remains serious pressure to take it away.”įorcing WhatsApp to break its encryption will have a huge impact on secure communications worldwide. “We cannot take end-to-end encryption for granted,” WhatsApp’s Will Cathcart has said, calling out Europe, India and Brazil. The move was blocked in Germany and challenged elsewhere, and while India’s digital security law, which would compromise WhatsApp's security in different ways, is under challenge, it sends a clear message to Facebook that it shouldn’t be crossing any red lines.Īccording to Burcu Kilic, Director of the Digital Rights Program at Public Citizen, the attempt to change WhatsApp’s user terms “is further proof that Facebook is abusing its dominant market power.” She says that the retreat came after “regulators in Turkey, India, South Africa, Brazil, Germany, and Colombia heard our call.”Īnd so, the ultimate irony here is that WhatsApp came under so much international pressure over user privacy that it had to change its plans, even as international pressure continues to intensify on WhatsApp to compromise user privacy with backdoors to allow law enforcement a window on user content. It became clear that Facebook would hit governmental blockers. Not because it resolves a particularly critical here and now issue for its users, many of whom have already accepted the new terms, but because it showed how governmental pressure could be brought to bear on Facebook in the new environment to change its course. The WhatsApp backtrack over changed terms was a game-changer. Instead of giving everyone in the world a voice, it will silence us.” Instead of bringing us closer together, it will keep us apart. Instead of sharing our ideas, it will shut them down. But if we choose to erode our privacy and security, it will do the opposite. “The power of technology is that it lets us connect at extraordinary speed and scale and democratizes information better than anything ever invented. “Surrendering our privacy would paralyze us,” Cathcart warns. The opinion piece suggests governments, foreign and domestic, but Facebook itself is a more likely foe. But the opinion piece also provides multiple examples-medical, financial, etc., where users don’t want their content open to interception from shadowy big brother characters. The irony in WhatsApp insisting end-to-end encryption is needed, while Messenger users go without, is stark enough on its own. WhatsApp’s boss even penned an opinion piece giving all the reasons such security was “essential” albeit under threat from lawmakers and regulators. WhatsApp used its default and-to-end encryption as its primary (some might say only) defense against the accusation that Facebook was encroaching on the privacy of its users. The contrast between Facebook Messenger and its WhatsApp stablemate has been fascinating this year-and, in reality, sends a very clear message to those 1.3 billion Messenger users that it’s now time to jump ship. If MI5’s boss sounding a warning was the first piece of new news aimed at Facebook’s Menlo Park HQ, then the second was the quite extraordinary backtrack the company was forced into over WhatsApp’s controversial change of terms. Let’s see how fast Facebook works out compensatory tech to deal with Apple’s new App Tracking Transparency, by way of comparison. We’ve known for some weeks now that Facebook has delayed its Messenger security upgrade until next year, “at the earliest,” and while this has been painted as a technical issue given the sprawling nature of the platform, the clever money is on it being more complex than that. Suddenly hundreds of millions (now two billion) users were able to use a secure mainstream platform, leaving lawmakers in the “dark.” If WhatsApp can’t see your content, neither can a law enforcement agency-even with a warrant. When WhatsApp pushed the big red button in 2016, end-to-end encrypting all messages for all users, there wasn’t the focus on encryption that there is now.
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