One of our previous blogs explains about encryption and how protective it is against others (Whatsapp in particular). There has been ongoing debates as to what the actual rights should be and who has access rights to peoples conversations.
Australia’s government has turned up the heat with the top suggesting that it shouldn’t be as private as it is.
What is encryption?
There’s still a little confusion on encryption and as to how it works. You can read in more detail on our blog about encryption and how it works. But to put it in the shortest and simplest way possible, only you and the recipient can view your conversation and nobody else.
Before encryption became apart of messaging, as the message was travelling through the system, companies like Whatsapp could see the messages you were sending back and forth which people argued that their privacy wasn’t valued enough. In order to keep their customers happy, Whatsapp implemented end-to-end encryption to their latest update which sparked some controversy with the law.
Why have the Australian Government brought it to their attention?
As it’s explained above, it’s all about privacy laws and the concerns with it recently. Without putting a negative impact on the subject, more terror attacks have occurred this year but it’s a question as to how it was planned and what form of communication was used to discuss it.
One attack in London was discussed on Whatsapp, but with encryption implemented the police could not get access to the conversation which could of held crucial evidence to see if he was acting alone and if not, how to target and stop further attacks from happening.
Privacy
We can all agree that privacy is an important aspect that we should have, but when it’s so private that nobody else can see it apart from the sender and the recipient it can get a little worrying, because obviously nobody will know what conversations are taking place and if they pose any threat or worry to anyone.
There has been discussion about trying to intercept the conversation in real time, but a cyber security expert has said that it most likely will not work. There is a special key that each recipient has so they can only unlock the conversation. It’s like going to someone’s house without having the key, if you don’t have the key you can’t enter the property.
What do you think?
As an IT Support company, we have different views on the matter because we want to make sure that people are protected. But could you be too protected with the encryption? We’d like to know what you think on the matter and see if encryption is for or against.
