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WhatsApp Will Get Indicators To Highlight Encrypted Chats (softpedia.com)

Posted by timothy on from the whatsapp-alice-and-bob? dept.

An anonymous reader writes: WhatsApp 3.0 will come with two privacy-related changes. The first is in the Security section and is in the form of a new setting called "Show security indicators." Turning on this setting will add a lock icon to your WhatsApp whenever you're having encrypted conversations. The second new setting is in the Account section, with the addition of a new option that says "Share my account info." This setting will send the user's WhatsApp data to Facebook servers "to improve [their] Facebook experiences."

5 of 27 comments (clear)

  1. Everyone's getting into the encrypted chat game. by gcnaddict · · Score: 2

    Facebook'll still be able to read it, so it's probably worthless.

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  2. security indicators? who needs them? by Escogido · · Score: 2

    this is not a web browser where you have web sites that do not support https, and you have to comply.

    if all users care, then all conversations should be secure, with no opt-out, and no indication is needed. (assuming there is no/really little additional cost to do that.)

    if some users care, then those who care should be able to make all their conversations secure, and those who don't, well, don't need an indicator either.

    is there something I'm missing here? I do not have a WhatsApp account.

    1. Re:security indicators? who needs them? by softnewsit · · Score: 3, Informative

      As explained in the article. This is a PR move. WhatsApp already sent traffic via encrypted channels, but newly-launched apps advertised themselves as "super-mega-encrypted" and WhatsApp is losing face because it's not. They're just showing an indicator to let you know they're "cool" also.

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    2. Re:security indicators? who needs them? by invictusvoyd · · Score: 2

      That's surprising because most people who actively use whatsapp don't know and don't care about whatever this "encryption" thing is .

  3. Re:encrypted yet backdoored? by Dog-Cow · · Score: 2

    Messages are routed through their servers. They can already read them all. It's like questioning whether an HTTPS-using server is using key escrow. It's the end-point of the conversation; it doesn't need key escrow to read your messages.