Facebook – Secret Conversation
Whatsapp had put up a code with the addition of new layers of security to the apps of billion users with the creation of the largest end-to-end encrypted messaging network in history. WhatsApp’s parent company Facebook has now eventually provided it users using its other hugely famous chat app with the opportunity to catch up. As informed to WIRED, a spokesperson of Facebook had informed that the company had completed rolling out `Secret Conversations’ to 900 million Facebook Messenger users in the last few weeks.
The chosen feature enabled users to encrypt their messages in order that no one could read them with the exception of the two individuals at each end of a chat and not even Facebook or law enforcement of the intelligence organizations. A description stated in the app that when users had initiated their first encrypted conversation `your messages are already secure, though Secret Conversation are encrypted from one device to another’.
While the updates of the software of the company for iOS as well as Android have not been clearly mentioned the feature of encryption, those who tend to update their Messenger app would now find the choice of `secret option towards the top right area of the `new message’ screen.
Opt for Snapchat-Style Termination
Moreover the feature also permits the transmitters to opt for Snapchat-style termination time for messages which may vary from five seconds to a day. Users who have updated the app have the facility of sending or receiving encrypted time-sensitive messages and hence users are recommended to update as early as possible.
Secret Conversation tends to use the Signal encryption system which seems to have a healthy status in the security community. It had been established by the non-profit Open Whisper System that had implemented the encryption layer first in its own Signal app before teaming with the other companies to include the procedure.
The new security mechanism had been first announced by Facebook and had been tested with beta users in July. Google had also recently launched the Allo messenger which included the encryption choice.
New Feature – Strong/Simple Encryption
The new layer of encryption of Facebook Messenger needs to be enabled manually for each conversation instead of being changed on by default since it is in the Signal app or WhatsApp. The conclusion could be a measure of a negotiation with the purpose of assisting Facebook to prevent legal as well as political difficulties.
The default encryption of WhatsApp for instance seems to have already placed its parent company in an uncomfortable spot at least once when the authorities of Brazil had arrested an executive of Facebook in the country for his negligence in helping police decrypt WhatsApp messages that had been send in a drug trafficking case, by criminal suspects.
However, the opt-in move has brought about the scorn of privacy advocates when Facebook had announced Secret Conversation, such as the tweet from ACLU technologist Chris Soghoian. Considering it or not, the new feature of Facebook tends to bring in strong, simple encryption to hundreds of millions of users.
The spread to the other ultra-popular messaging services, with the combination of end-to-end encryptions, stopping investigations has never been easy.
