WhatsApp Just Added End-To-End Encryption For Over 1 Billion Users
The Apple ( AAPL )-FBI over iPhone privacy is so last month. While the FBI may have cracked the smartphone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists, Facebook ( FB ) unit WhatsApp on Wednesday launched end-to-end encryption. More than one billion people use Facebook’s WhatApp. WhatsApp founders Brian Acton and Jan Koum explained how the system will work in a blog post. “From now on when you and your contacts use the latest version of the app, every call you make, and every message, photo, video, file, and voice message you send, is end-to-end encrypted by default, including group chats. The idea is simple: when you send a message, the only person who can read it is the person or group chat that you send that message to. No one can see inside that message. Not cybercriminals. Not hackers. Not oppressive regimes. Not even us.” That means that WhatsApp couldn’t help governments crack your messages even if it wanted to. The app will work for the Apple iPhone, as well as smartphones using Alphabet-owned Google Android software or any other mobile device. Koum, who is WhatsApp’s CEO and a former Yahoo ( YHOO ) employee along with Acton, cited his childhood in the communist Soviet Union as key to his “desire to protect people’s private communication.” Facebook stock fell 0.3% to 112.22 in the stock market today . The stock is near a buy point of 117.69, which would be a new high. Facebook could be forming a handle that would create a slightly lower buy area. Apple fell 1.2% to 109.80 Tuesday after crossing above its 200-day line Monday and failing to close above that level. Alphabet fell 0.8% to 758.67, below a buy point at 810.45. Yahoo retreated 1.65%.