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.
评论
发表评论