Apr 6, 2016

WhatsApp Has Finally Rolls Out End-to-End Encryption For Messages, Calling

WhatsApp is extending end-to-end encryption across its platform, the company announced.

Previously, WhatsApp’s encryption features were only available to Android users.

Open Whisper Systems integrated its Signal Protocol into WhatsApp, offering encryption on chats, attachments, voice notes, and voice calls.

“Over the pa st year, we’ve been progressively rolling out Signal Protocol support for all WhatsApp communication across all WhatsApp clients,” the company said.

This includes Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, Nokia S40, Nokia S60, BlackBerry, and BlackBerry 10.
If it doesn’t say encrypted, it isn’t encrypted

Until all users have downloaded the latest version of WhatsApp, there will still be some plain text on its network.

“To make this transition as clear as possible, WhatsApp clients notify users when their chats become end-to-end encrypted,” said Open Whisper Systems.

“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.”

WhatsApp also lets you verify the authenticity of an encrypted session.

“Like Signal, this can be done by either scanning a QR code or by reading a string aloud.”

“We’ve updated the Signal Protocol to support a fully numeric fingerprint format, which we call ‘security codes’ in WhatsApp.”

Source: mybroadband