WhatsApp Rolls Out End-to-End Encryption for Android, iOS and Windows

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The big fight between Apple and FBI over a federal order to unlock the iPhone of a mass shooter was the biggest story from the Silicon Valley in the past few weeks. The company’s refusal to oblige the request started a fiery debate over privacy and security in the digital age. The debate over encryption has only grown more intense. On February 16, Apple CEO Tim Cook released an open letter refusing the court order to unlock a phone that belonged to one of the two shooters involved in December attack in San Bernardino, California.

Taking consumer privacy to a whole new level WhatsApp has completely encrypted all the communication right from texts to calls.

WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum announced the update on his Facebook page, stating that the company has been working on the feature for the last two years.

Koum wrote, “We’ve been working for the past two years to give people better security over their conversations on WhatsApp… People deserve security. It makes it possible for us to connect with our loved ones. It gives us the confidence to speak our minds. It allows us to communicate sensitive information with colleagues, friends, and others. We’re glad to do our part in keeping people’s information out of the hands of hackers and cyber-criminals.”

WhatsApp in partnership with Open Whisper Systems integrated the Signal Protocol into their product thereby moving towards full end to end encryption for all of their users by default. On his blog coder and cryptographer Moxie Marlinspike mentioned that this update will be running on the most recent versions of WhatsApp on any platform and users will receive full end to end encryption for every message they send and every WhatsApp call they make when communicating with each other. This includes all the benefits of the Signal Protocol – a modern, open source, forward secure, strong encryption protocol for asynchronous messaging systems, designed to make end-to-end encrypted messaging as seamless as possible.

Starting today, users will see a notice in their conversation screen as their individual and group chats become end to end encrypted. Additionally, the encryption status of any chat is visible under that chat's preferences screen.