The Global Implications Of WhatsApp’s Encryption and Cyber Security Challenges

By: digitalCaribbean.Live / staff writer : last updated: June 5th. 2023

Just a few weeks ago billionaire Elon Musk made statements to the effect that the most popular messaging App in the world ‘WhatsApp’ can’t be trusted. (see article here)

Those statements were based on a screenshot from an engineer at Twitter (which is now owned by Musk); the engineer wrote that WhatsApp was utilizing the microphone on his smartphone while he was sleeping (4-5am in the morning)

To bolster his claims he provided screenshots of the activity on his phone, he rigged a monitoring apparatus that logged the activity on the phone, while he slept.

Then a few days ago (May 27th.) ‘Wired Magazine Online’ penned an article about the global implications that were brewing as a result of a new law by the very tech-savvy ‘Government of Indian’. where all messaging Apps, including WhatsApp are affected by requirements of that government.

The article in Wired online indicated that
“This week, the Facebook-owned messaging platform sued the Indian government in a bid to challenge new IT rules that ask messaging apps to trace the “first originator” of a message. Doing so could require WhatsApp to weaken its end-to-end encryption, revealing the identities of senders and affecting the security of its 400 million-plus users in India—and possibly billions of others worldwide.”

The developments has become more interesting, and the scrutiny hovering over WhatsApp was mentioned in a FirstPost segment in mid May 2023

So What’s The Beef With India
Well, first of all, India is What’sApp’s ‘largest user-base-by-country’ in the world, currently at just under 400-million users by some reports, and other reports say it’s just over 400-million, that’s more than the population of the United States which has a large user-base of Facebook Messenger.

In February of 2023, The Government of India passed a law that requires all messaging platforms in India with more than 5-million users must store data about the originator of a message, and to provide the ‘data of the originator of a message or voice-call to the government or courts ‘IF IT ASKS FOR IT’

In response Meta has sued the government of India, indicating that the new law will weaken WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption technologies.

The globally popular messaging App; is used by over 2 billion users worldwide, and 20% or ( just under 400-million) of those users are in India.

As a result of the latest riff, the competitors of WhatsApp have been stepping up their efforts to get users of WhatsApp in India to switch to their platform;

The Business Of ‘Make That App Do More’

What’s In A Modern Messaging App,
Can do More Than You Might Think !

Asynchronous messaging Apps are evolving at a rapid pace, and the providers of the more popular messaging-Apps are now offering much more than just instant messaging or free phone and or video calls;
the paradigm shift of these mobile applications are entering a new level.

On May 3rd. 2023 Forester Research held a webinar that focused on how asynchronous messaging Apps are beginning to penetrate the B2C (Business to Consumer) marketplace and how consumer services are going to be broadly influenced by the new capabilities of these Apps.

The company in the Caribbean that’s leading the way in providing inexpensive B2C WhatsApp APIs is Csygen Interactive C-CA, the parent company of digitalCaribbean.live.

A good example of that paradigm shift is the new Expedia, the travel booking site is not only for booking: plane tickets, rental cars, cruise ship vacations and hotel rooms and more; the company will soon be offering CRM services that will (in some minor ways) eclipse all those in-house chores that were done by large teams of customer service professionals at those same hotels, airlines and car rental companies. All on the same Expedia platform.

New Regulations Affect end-to-end Encryption

There will be detractors, for and against the new rules and laws, some may say its no problem you will just have to install new software, while other will point to the realistic possibility that a rule like the Indian rule may be viewed favorable by other governments, and thus adopted everywhere.

These new regulations will be devised by governments, the majority of those laws will be centered around national security, fraud and crime prevention, and economic interests.

The challenge to the providers of these type of Apps will be to navigate a world of challenges that may come from governments in the form of Fines, Regulations and national concerns about economic and security interests

Written & Compiled by: channel1Belize.com / digitalCaribbean,LIVE Staff writer – Sunday, June 4th. 2023 – channel1belize@gmail.com