WhatsApp’s Billion Users Can Now Send Encrypted Messages

Apple’s recent stoush with the U.S. government has ignited a much-needed conversation about the value and importance of privacy, even in the face of terrorism.

Specifically, is there such a thing as ‘too much’ privacy?

Maybe! Maybe not! These are the issues that keep Silicon Valley, the Feds and the rest of the world up at night.

Of course, Apple’s rejection of a court order to hack into iPhones belonging to the San Bernardino shooters didn’t keep the FBI from finding another backdoor into the locked devices.

But the engineers of WhatsApp have decided to make a statement of their own by heading off any potential court orders and encrypting all their users' messages, end-to-end, across all operating systems.

Meaning, the content of your messages, photos and video calls will only ever be seen by you and your message recipients.

Not even the engineers of the chat app can access your conversations, the Facebook-owned company noted in a statement.

“WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption ensures only you and the person you're communicating with can read what is sent, and nobody in between, not even WhatsApp,” the statement explained.

“This is because your messages are secured with a lock, and only the recipient and you have the special key needed to unlock and read them.”

Users of WhatsApp merely need to have the latest version of the app to take advantage of the end-to-end encryption; no ‘settings’ adjustments are necessary.

WhatsApp first encrypted part of its network in 2014, for Android users only.

Speaking to Wired, WhatsApp founders Brian Acton and Jan Koum - along with a “high-minded coder and cryptographer” going by the pseudonym Moxie Marlinspike – confirmed that the encryption would keep them from complying with any court order that requests access to WhatsApp communications.

When you consider that WhatsApp is on about a billion devices, worldwide, well… this is kind of a big deal, and not just for tech-heads.

Complicating matters: WhatsApp was found to have been used by the terrorists responsible for the attacks on Paris last November. It’s not known if the app - and other encrypted messaging apps like it - were specifically used to coordinate the attacks.

What are your thoughts on WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption?

Photo: iStock.