encryption

WhatsApp is now providing end-to-end encryption in all their messages. One billion users worldwide will now be able to use the app knowing that their messages would be inaccessible to anyone except the recipient. The Facebook owned company believes that encryption leads to better security all around. From today all communications on the world’s most popular app would be secure. Even Whatsapp would not be able to see the real content of the messages sent between users.

The Justice Department has opened another front in the war against secure encryption by going after WhatsApp. The DOJ is frustrated with the popular messaging app’s strong encryption and might go after its parent company, Facebook, in a case similar to Apple-iPhone Vs FBI. Ars Technica reports: According to a Saturday report in The New York Times, prosecutors have gone head-to-head with WhatsApp, the messaging app owned by Facebook.

While the FBI and Apple continue to fight in court over encryption and public privacy, Amazon has discreetly disabled encryption on all of its products so that consumers are no longer able to protect their data on Android-powered devices.  Amazon has ceased its support for device encryption on the latest version of Fire OS – an operating system used to power its tablets and phones – leaving them open for the government and hackers to easily access user data.

Seemingly angered at the temerity of Apple's Tim Cook's defense of individual's privacy and security, Congress has escalated the 'crypto-wars' that are dividing Washington and Silcon Valley. In its most directly totalitarian move yet, WSJ reports that Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R., N.C.) is working on a proposal that would create criminal penalties for companies that don’t comply with court orders to decipher encrypted communications.

An internet privacy organization has planned nationwide protests over a court order pressuring Apple Inc. to build a backdoor into their encryption security, used on their smart-phones, to allow the FBI access. Fight for the Future, dedicated to fighting basic internet rights and freedoms, is organizing protests at Apple stores nationwide. Sputnik reports: The protests will not be against Apple, who has released a message to their customers decrying the order and vowing to challenge it, but against the US government.