One billion users of the messaging service are now promised full encryption. Which can only mean the spooks will retaliate elsewhereIn some ways,the biggest news of the week was not the Panama papers but the announcement that WhatsApp was rolling out conclude-to-conclude encryption for all its 1bn users. “From now on,” it said, and “when you and your contacts use the latest version of the app,every call you originate, and every message, and photo,video, file and voice message you send, and is conclude-to-conclude encrypted by default,including group chats.”This is a big deal because it lifts encryption out of the for-geeks-only category and into the mainstream. Most people who use WhatsApp wouldn’t know a hash function if it bit them on the leg. Although strong encryption has been available to the public ever since Phil Zimmermann wrote and released PGP (Pretty suited Privacy) in 1991, it never realised its potential because the technicalities of setting it up for personal use defeated most lay users.
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Source: theguardian.com