The topic of privacy of conversations is at a fever pitch. At least in places like United States, where federal authorities want to corner the big tech companies like Apple to allow access to your data in cases of judicial investigations, such as the case of the terrorist shooting suffered in San Bernadino (USA) However, it seems that these companies are responding with a counter-attack, trying to improve and update their security systems to improve the privacy of user communications.Something that WhatsApp is participating in.
Or at least that's what they say in the British newspaper The Guardian, where they say that the most used messaging application in the worldwill incorporate its encryption system to calls over the Internet In this way, users will not only be protected against attacks by third parties when communicating via text message, but their talk conversations Nor could they be heard by curious people, by WhatsApp or even by state intelligence systems.
The application already protects the privacy of its users with an encryption system from the security company Open Whisper System that is appliedfrom user to user since the past 2014. That is, only the participants of the conversation can decode messages and read their content Something that protects the information transmitted against theft in the path of messages. A security measure that will also be taken to conversations spoken through the free call service over the Internet, according to The Guardian
However, WhatsApp would not be the only application to oppose the US authorities. Its ”˜cousin-sister”™ application, Facebook Messenger, could also apply the same philosophy to this issue, trying to defend users' privacy above all else. As would happen with Snapchat, and even Google, which has been working on a new and secure email service.
This position of the technological world in favor of privacy supports the decision of Apple of not creating a software or back door for their iPhones with which the authorities could access specific user information.Something that, according to the FBI, would serve to facilitate the fight against terrorism However, as as understood by representatives of different companies, opening a back door would make companies and users more vulnerable in the long run.
In any case, it looks like this war between the State and tech companies will result in more security and privacy for the user, although this means fewer tools to fight terrorism or in cases of drug cartels, as has happened recently with WhatsApp in Brazil A security that, shortly, will not only protect the written messages of the users of WhatsApp, but also everything they verbalize to through free calls over the Internet However, at the moment it is unknown when this protection will arrive.
