WhatsApp introduces end-to-end encryption for Android for uncrackable messaging

End-to-end encryption means that WhatsApp can't read the messages  - even if law enforcement demand the data

WhatsApp has announced that it is implementing end-to-end encryption for the Android version of its app – an unprecedented move that makes it the most secure large-scale messaging service available.

The announcement is true to form for the company’s CEO and founder Jan Koum who has consistently assured users of his commitment to privacy after growing up under the surveillance-orientated regime of 1980s Soviet-era Ukraine.

End-to-end encryption is more secure than the protocols used by the likes of Facebook Messenger and Google’s Gchat as it means that even WhatsApp itself can’t decrypt users’ messages if law enforcement demands the data.

Apple’s iMessage and numerous third-party messaging apps (including Telegram, Cryptocat and Silent Text) also offer end-to-end-encryption, but WhatsApp’s implementation is the largest yet, affecting hundreds of millions of its 600 hundred million iOS and Android users.

The encryption itself is being provided by Open Whisper Systems via open source messaging app Text Sure. Open Whisper CTO Moxie Marlinspike told The Verge that work on the implementation began just after WhatsApp was bought by Facebook for $16 billion in February this year.

Following this acquisition WhatsApp users were worried that the acquisition would mean a subsequent loss of privacy, but Koum responded in a blog post saying “respect for your privacy is coded into our DNA”.

“We built WhatsApp around the goal of knowing as little about you as possible,” wrote Koum. “Our focus remains on delivering the promise of WhatsApp far and wide, so that people around the world have the freedom to speak their mind without fear.”

 

James Foley: Journalism or propaganda?

We examine the ethical challenges of reporting the murder of the American journalist by IS.

When James Foley was beheaded by the Islamic State (IS) group after being held captive for two years, the American journalist became a big part of a story he was just there to cover.

The IS staged the execution, captured it on video and disseminated the footage on the internet to deliver their message. The video shocked anyone who saw it and raised editorial and ethical dilemmas in the newsrooms around the world over reporting the facts without becoming a propaganda tool of the IS. The footage was immediately banned on social media and in the UK even just watching it constitutes a crime. 

Talking to us about the Foley video and the ethical lines when reporting propaganda are: Eric Margolis, the Toronto Sun; Kelly McBride, Poynter Institute; Mokthar Awad, Center for American Progress; and Elizabeth Anker, George Washington University.
In our Newsbytes this week: No prizes for guessing which channel Ukraine Today has been set up to compete against. The new 24-hour English-language international news channel began broadcasting on August 24, Ukrainian Independence Day as the conflict with Russia intensified; in Nigeria, a newspapers is stormed by soldiers after it reported government setbacks in their fight against Boko Haram; and trouble in paradise: a reporter from the Maldives goes missing after reporting on urban gangs. 

Our feature this week is from Japan. After the Fukushima disaster in 2011, covering the nuclear issue there got tough. The media have been accused of regurgitating the government's official lines - and putting the public at risk. Nuclear power has been a key component in the production of electricity in Japan. The plants have been shut for three years, but the government wants to restart them. Normally, that would be a subject up for debate in the public sphere, in the media. Trouble is that some think the Japanese journalism has lost its appetite for the story. The Listening Post's Gouri Sharma investigates.

Finally, during the war in Gaza, a smartphone game that invited players to 'Bomb Gaza' was taken down by Google from its Play Store after a public backlash. Canadian filmmaker John Greyson decided to respond to the game, using the idea to put the Gaza bombing into context for Canadians. He produced a video that looks like the game and imposes the map of Gaza over the city of Toronto to show what a bombing campaign would look like in North America. Gazonto is our Web Video of the Week.

 

World War One Through Arab Eyes

One hundred years after the Ottomans joined the war, this three-part series tells the story from an Arab perspective.

World War One was four years of bitter conflict from 1914 to 1918. Called 'The Great War' and the 'war to end all wars', it is often remembered for its grim and relentless trench warfare - with Europe seen as the main theatre of war.

But this was a battle fought on many fronts. There is a story other than the mainstream European narrative. It is not told as often but was of huge importance during the war and of lasting significance afterwards. It is the story of the Arab troops who were forced to fight on both sides but whose contribution is often forgotten.

They fought as conscripts for the European colonial powers occupying Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia - and for the Ottomans on the side of Germany and the Central Powers. The post-war settlement would also shape the Middle East for the next hundred years.

In this three-part series, Tunisian writer and broadcaster Malek Triki explores the events surrounding World War One and its legacy from an Arab perspective.