EFF Reviews Advances, Setbacks of Encrypted Messaging Apps in 2016
Despite some major advances in encrypted messaging platforms, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said some companies made "poor decisions" that could undermine cryptography in their apps. In a Thursday blog post, part of its 2016 year in review, EFF security engineer…
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and technologist Bill Budington and researcher Gennie Gebhart said Facebook-owned WhatsApp introduced end-to-end encryption with a "well-regarded" security protocol for more than 1 billion monthly active users. But the service changed its privacy policy in August allowing expanded user account sharing with Facebook, which drew the ire of privacy advocates and European regulators (see 1608250027 and 1610280039). Some platforms like Facebook's Messenger and Google's Allo messaging app provided end-to-end encrypted options and labeled them "incognito," "private" or "secret," which could spur people to use the encryption "only when they are doing something shady or embarrassing" (see 1608010059 and 1610030038), they wrote. This could be a "red flag" for valuable and sensitive data, they said. But other messaging apps like Signal and Line strengthened their encryption by default offerings. EFF said Signal introduced the "disappearing messages" function that allows users to configure a specified amount of time after which messages sent and received can be deleted. Line introduced an icon that permits users to quickly see if a chat room is encrypted. Budington and Gebhart also noted China's WeChat messenger, which practices selective censorship of its 806 million monthly active users regarding content critical of the regime.