Facebook started experimenting with Messenger’s default end-to-end encryption
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| Facebook started experimenting with Messenger’s default end-to-end encryption |
Facebook announced this week that it has started testing the functionality for chats “between select people” as part of its long-awaited plans to enable end-to-end encryption (E2EE) by default in its Messenger chat platform.
Facebook presently gives Messenger users the choice to enable E2EE for each individual chat, but security-conscious users tend to be the minority who accept such opt-in programmes. Making end-to-end encryption the default for a chat platform used by more than a billion people globally will be a significant step toward enhancing security. Arguments with governments about how E2EE affects their ability to combat crime are also expected to result.
Due to end-to-end encryption, only participants can see the content of communications sent between users on Facebook. This makes it considerably more difficult for other parties, like hackers or government police, to eavesdrop on digital communications, though it’s still conceivable.
Although Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has been gradually enhancing the levels of encryption on its many chat platforms in recent years, these efforts have not yet been coordinated. The same protocol is used by industry-standard secure messengers. Signal is used by default to encrypt chats on WhatsApp. Opt-in encryption for Instagram DMs is also being tested, and Messenger offers E2EE through its “disappearing messages” feature. (The app formerly provided a comparable “vanish mode,” but Facebook’s upgrade today removes this feature.)
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in the US, where digital traces like app chats will be used as evidence in the prosecution of newly criminalised abortions, Facebook has been under fire for not making E2EE the default on Messenger. This last was demonstrated this week in a case when Facebook complied with a search order issued by the police to turn over the Messenger chat logs of a Nebraskan teen and her mother, which resulted in the two being charged with violating the state’s previous abortion regulations.
Facebook previously claimed that the delay in implementing E2EE as the default on all of its chat platforms was due to the challenge of incorporating such technology into apps used by billions of people and the necessity to strike a balance between user privacy and security. The business reaffirmed that it is on schedule to make E2EE the default for all conversations and calls on Messenger “in 2023” in its update today. The company also revealed a feature called “safe storage” that will encrypt cloud backups of users’ Messenger chat histories in addition to the new test of default E2EE.
The business stated that it was testing safe storage to back up those communications in case a user lost their phone or desired to recover their message history on a different, supported device. We won’t have access to your messages, unless you want to report them to us, just like with end-to-end encrypted conversations.
In addition, the company is testing the ability to unsend messages and adding encryption to hands-free communications sent on Messenger using its Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses. Other new capabilities being tested on Messenger include the syncing of deleted messages across devices.