Facebooks New Admission Just Gave 1 Billion Messenger Users A Reason To Switch – Forbes

Facebook has just admitted its bold Messenger encryption promise will not be delivered for years, ... [+] giving its billion users a reason to switch to another service.

Facebooks Messenger service is not yet end-to-end encrypted by default, despite the bold promises CEO Mark Zuckerberg made last March. While the move would give Facebook Messengersone billion users access to significantly more secure communications, it isnt going to happen any time soon, according toWired.

The reason for this is surprising: Its not because Facebook needs to drastically change its business model, or due to interference from law enforcement who have their eyes on encryption. Its actually because of the massive technical challenge involved.

Due to the significant issues in adding the technology to an existing system, end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger could be years away, a Facebook software engineer speaking at theReal World Cryptoconference in New York has admitted.

"While we have made progress in the planning, it turns out that adding end-to-end encryption to an existing system is incredibly challenging and involves fundamentally rethinking almost everything," Facebooks Jon Millican said.

Currently end-to-end encryption for Facebook Messenger is available, but only if you use itsSecret Conversations Mode.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp enabled end-to-end encryption for its billion users in 2016. But last year, it emerged thatFacebook Messenger is to be integrated with WhatsAppand Instagram under a single underlying messaging platform or protocol.

Its not clear what this latest Facebook admission means for the integration plans, but the social network has also recently been criticized forhiring contractors to listen to peoples private conversations.

Facebook has also been the subject of multiplebreachesand data scandals. Meanwhile, in November, the social network came under fire for testing ascary facial recognition appon its employees and their friends.

With many people already considering deleting their Facebook accounts, its a good idea to take a look at secure services you can use to chat to friends and contacts that use end-to-end encryption by default.

Here are three alternatives to Facebook Messenger:

Signalis well-known and loved among the security community, and its a great way to chat to your friends and contacts securely. Among its attributes, Signal provides end-to-end encryption using its own uniqueprotocol.

Its also open source, which makes it more secure because a large number of skilled people are able to constantly test and fix its code. Signal offers features such as self-destructing messages and the ability to hide messages appearing on the lock screen to hide them from prying eyes.

Beloved of many security-conscious people,Wickrwas actually one of the first messaging apps to adopt end-to-end encryption. It boasts some cool features such as the ability to ensure deleted files are completely unrecoverable.

With the option to enable conference and group calling on the professional version, Wickr Pro, its especially suitable for enterprise users. In addition, Wickr is open source, meaning its easy for the community to get involved in fixing security issues and bugs.

Viberis quite a popular secure messaging app, with about260 million monthly active users. As well as offering end-to-end encryption, it color codes your chats to show you how secure they are. But one thing you should note: only one to one chats are end-to-end encrypted, so group conversations are not as secure.

I get it: As well as switching to another service yourself, you have to convince your friends its the best one for them too.

Personally, I dont use Facebook Messenger anymore, and I have kept WhatsApp for now to speak to friends and contacts who use the service. But I also use Signal to chat securely to people who are open to downloading it.

The app is free, so why dont you install it on your smartphone and try it out?

View original post here:
Facebooks New Admission Just Gave 1 Billion Messenger Users A Reason To Switch - Forbes