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Viber Update Brings End-To-End Encryption and Hidden Chats (gsmarena.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the end-to-end-encryption dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The new hip thing to do if you're a developer of a messaging app is to encrypt everyone's messages -- everyone's doing it! WhatsApp announced earlier this month all messages being sent through the service will now be end-to-end encrypted. Today, Viber has announcd it is doing something similar. All messages being sent through the latest version of the app will be end-to-end encrypted. To confirm messages are being encrypted, a padlock icon will appear in the chat UI. The latest version of the app is already available in the iOS App Store and Android Google Play Store. Viber is one of the largest messaging platforms with over 700 million users. Hidden chats can also be found in the new update. Users can hide select chats with people and access/display them with a PIN or Touch ID.

2 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. How can this be checked? by thesupraman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wonder which of them will be the first to open up their implementation to scrutiny?
    Showing us a nice little padlock icon is all very well, but encryption is *hard*, and getting it right is subtle.

    An assurance that they cannot access any of the data themselves would be a start, because it points
    to true end-to-end (rather than end-to-middleman, which is much less useful...)

    If you can access your messages from more than one device, then it is a sign that all is not well in paradise,
    as they may hold the keys themselves (in which case what is the point), but not necessarily.

    If trust is part of security, then do you trust the security? ;)

  2. can someone explain this to me? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So geezer here, been online since the early 80's. For a long time, store-and-forward type messaging (usenet) and instant messengers (IRC, when it appeared) alike separated the protocol from the client. There were dozens upon dozens of usenet and IRC clients, so you could pick one with features you wanted, but still communicate with everyone else, because they'd all abide the same underlying communication protocol.

    For some reason, everyone decided that they'd rather have kik that can't talk to viber that can't talk to whatsapp that can't talk that MS one that can't talk to any of the other dozens of competing ones. Fractured little fiefdoms. This confuses me. It seems like a significant loss.

    I can even understand why a company wants to lock people into its messager and only its messenger. What I don't understand is why everyone insists on flocking to those things, and eschews the kind of platform agnostic standards that let the internet succeed so wildly in the first place. You can email someone without caring much about which reader they use! What was wrong with that model, that we had to run as fast as possible away from it?