Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has reportedly incorporated an open-source message encrypting software to protect Whatsapp messages from government interventions.
Joint Venture
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), which had recently acquired the popular mobile messaging app, Whatsapp, has added a new feature to the app. The social media network has worked with Whisper System to incorporate of an encryption software, TextSecure, in the app. According to analysts, this could be the biggest employments as far as deployments of encryption services are concerned.
As the article explains, the feature will be available in updated versions of the app across the Android platform. Users’ messages will be encrypted from end-to-end, which will ensure that they remain incomprehensible to anyone other than Whatsapp or Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB). As Android users account for 80% of the Whatsapp user community, the deployment will affect more than 600 million users across the globe. This huge population number accounts for the deployment being potentially the largest till date, according to TextSecure developer, Whisper Systems.
About The Update
However, the update will not affect messages posted in groups made by users on WhatsApp, which statistically are most popular form of message exchange on the app. Additionally encryption on photos or videos will not be carried out either.
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and Whisper Systems have been working together for almost six months. In a blog post, the later mentioned that the project expanded scope includes covering of encryption on group messages, photos and videos in due course of time. Apart from this, the joint venture also plans to bring the feature in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone’s too.
Seeing the huge popularity of the messaging service across the vast and extremely diverse range of platforms, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) still has a long way to go. WhatsApp is popular on Nokia Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:NOK), BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY), as well as Windows Phone. Other than this, Whisper Systems also plans to incorporate its encryption feature on other services too.
