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End-to-End Encryption in Messaging Services and National Security—Case of WhatsApp Messenger

Since Smartphones became popular, many messaging services have been launched. WhatsApp, which is a free messaging service owned by Facebook Inc., has emerged as one of the most popular messaging apps on mobile devices today. And as more and more people use WhatsApp as a means of communication, the importance of securing its users’ business or private communications has become more imperative. Users of the app expect a reasonable amount of privacy for all their communications. To meet this expectation, WhatsApp in 2014 introduced End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) technology. This allows for data between communicating parties to be secure, free from eavesdropping, and hard to crack. This technology offers peace of mind to end users because their data are safe in transit, and third parties or even WhatsApp itself cannot access them; thus messages can only be decrypted by the recipient.

However, the ubiquity of instant messaging services on mobile devices and their use of end-to-end encryption in safeguarding the privacy of their users have become a concern for some governments. Governments would like a “backdoor” into such apps, to use in accessing messages and have emphasized that they will only use the “backdoor” if there is a credible threat to national security. Users of WhatsApp have, however, argued against a “backdoor”; they claim a “backdoor” would not only be an infringement of their privacy, but that hackers could also take advantage of it.

In light of this security and privacy conflict between the end users of WhatsApp and government’s need to access messages in order to thwart potential terror attacks, this paper presented the advantages of maintaining E2EE in WhatsApp and why governments should not be allowed a “backdoor” to access users’ messages. This research also presented the benefits encryption had on consumer security and privacy, and also on the challenges it posed to public safety and national security.

Article by Robert E. Endeley, from Capitol Technology University, Laurel, MD, USA.

Full access: http://mrw.so/2m6oro
Image by App Italia, from Flickr-cc.

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