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Journal of Information Security, 2018, 9, 95-99
http://www.scirp.org/journal/jis
ISSN Online: 2153-1242
ISSN Print: 2153-1234
DOI:
10.4236/jis.2018.91008 Jan. 23, 2018 95 Journal of Information Security
End-to-End Encryption in Messaging Services
and National Security—Case of WhatsApp
Messenger
Robert E. Endeley
Capitol Technology University, Laurel, MD, USA
Abstract
The ubiquity of instant messaging services on mobile devices and their use of
end-to-end encryption in safeguarding the privacy of their users have
become
a concern for some governments. WhatsApp messaging service has emerged
as the most popular messaging app on mobile devices today. It uses end-to-
end
encryption which makes government and secret services efforts to combat o
r-
ganized crime, terrorists, and child pornographers technically impossible.
Governments would like a “backdoor” into such apps, to use
in accessing
messages and have emphasized that they will only use the “backdoor” if there
is a credible threat to national security. Users of WhatsApp have however, a
r-
gued against a “backdoor”; they claim a “backdoor” would not only be an i
n-
fringement of their privacy, but that hackers could also take advantage of it. In
light of this security and privacy conflict between the end users o
f WhatsApp
and government’s need to access messages in order to thwart potential terror
attacks, this paper presents the a
dvantages of maintaining E2EE in WhatsApp
and why governments should not be allowed a “backdoor” to access users’
messages. This research presents the benefits encryption has on consumer s
e-
curity and privacy, and also on the challenges it poses to public safety and n
a-
tional security.
Keywords
Instant Messaging, WhatsApp, End-to-End Encryption, National Security,
Privacy
1. Introduction
The world is ever changing due to the advancement in the realm of science and
technology, and these days it seems hard to escape the presence of technology in
How to cite this paper:
Endeley, R.
E.
(201
8) End-to-End Encryption in Messag-
ing Services and National Security
—
Case of
WhatsApp Messenger
.
Journal of Inform
a-
tion Security
,
9
, 95-99.
https://doi.org/10.4236/jis.2018.91008
Received:
December 22, 2017
Accepted:
January 20, 2018
Published:
January 23, 2018
Copyright © 201
8 by author and
Scientific
Research Publishing Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution
International
License (CC BY
4.0).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Open Access
R. E. Endeley
DOI:
10.4236/jis.2018.91008 96 Journal of Information Security
our daily lives. Since Smartphones became popular, many messaging services
have been launched. WhatsApp, which has more than 1.3 billion users in over
180 countries today, is a free messaging service owned by Facebook Inc., and has
become more popular than others [1].
In 2009, Brian Acton and Jan Koum created WhatsApp purposely to make
communication and the distribution of multimedia messaging easier and faster
[2]. WhatsApp works with internet connectivity and helps its users to stay in
touch with friends and relatives on their contact list. Apart from making its users
get, and stay connected with each other, it also helps them to create groups, send
images, videos, documents and audios [3].
As more and more people use WhatsApp as a means of communication, the
importance of securing its users’ business or private communications has be-
come more imperative. Users of the app expect a reasonable amount of privacy
for all their communications. To meet this expectation, WhatsApp in 2014 in-
troduced End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) technology. This allows for data be-
tween communicating parties to be secure, free from eavesdropping, and hard to
crack. This technology offers peace of mind to end users because their data are
safe in transit, and third parties or even WhatsApp itself cannot access them;
thus messages can only be decrypted by the recipient. While E2EE guarantees
integrity, security, and privacy, it however, eliminates government surveillance
and its ability to keep the country safe by intercepting terrorist communications.
2. Literature Review and Discussion
In light of this security and privacy conflict between the end users of WhatsApp
and government’s need to access messages in order to thwart potential terror at-
tacks, this paper seeks to outline the advantages of maintaining E2EE in
WhatsApp and why governments should not be allowed a “backdoor” to access
users’ messages.
Encryption is the scrambling of plaintext messages, turning it into unreadable
code that can only be deciphered by those who have the secret key. End-to-End
Encryption is one of the most commonly used technologies to secure and send
information across the internet. Hardware embedded into phones and comput-
ers allows for the random locks and keys that make E2EE only work on the de-
vices involved in the conversation. According to the [4], it is estimated that there
were about 276 million internet users in the United States in 2014, and that
number is predicted to rise. With this many users, the incentive for hackers to
execute attacks and steal personal information increases.
According to a Javelin Strategy and Research Report in 2012, one in every four
people who have a breach in their online data becomes a victim of identity theft
as a result of that [5]. End-to-End Encryption provides an effective way to pre-
vent these attacks, and if it had been implemented properly by Yahoo Inc., it
could have prevented large-scale attacks like the one Yahoo suffered in 2016 and
2013, where almost 500 million, and more than 1 billion accounts were respec-
tively compromised.
R. E. Endeley
DOI:
10.4236/jis.2018.91008 97 Journal of Information Security
Governments, and secret services on the other hand are asking encrypted
messaging services like WhatsApp to allow them access to their users’ data [6].
There is growing risk to public safety as organized crime, terrorists, and child
pornographers are drawn to the use of E2EE apps like WhatsApp that are tech-
nically impossible to access. According to [7], a defendant in a serious felony
case told another individual on a recorded jailhouse call that “end-to-end en-
cryption is another gift from God”. Criminal defendants across the United States
are benefiting from E2EE while the safety of all other American communities is
in peril. However, providing a backdoor would not only be a breach of privacy to
WhatsApp users, but creating a way for the authorities to read encrypted mes-
sages would also make the system vulnerable to cyber-attacks from criminals
and other hackers.
By implementing backdoors, it also means that the service is not truly
end-to-end encrypted in the first place. Microsoft Corporation created a back-
door into its popular messaging app Skype, even though its user base knew that
Skype was fully endowed with end-to-end encryption technology. However, in
2013 government whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the platform did
in fact, have a backdoor. This revelation led to a protest of Skype users and an
eventual loss of credibility of the application. According to [8], in a response by
Senator Ron Wyden regarding the US government’s position in seeking encryp-
tion backdoor, the senator said in July 2017 that, “the US government does not
need the approval of its secret surveillance court to ask a tech company to build
an encryption backdoor”. The implication is that the government can use its le-
gal authority to secretly ask a US-based company for technical assistance, such as
building an encryption backdoor into a product, but can petition the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to compel the company if it refuses.
Reference [9], reported a design feature in WhatsApp messaging service that
could potentially allow some encrypted messages to be read by unintended reci-
pients. WhatsApp allows undelivered messages to be stored in their servers for
up to 30 days before they are deleted. Reference [9] noted that the WhatsApp
implementation of the security protocol used in its E2EE allows for the genera-
tion of secret keys between communicating parties in a WhatsApp conversation.
However, new keys get generated when a user gets a new phone or reinstalls
WhatsApp. Messages for the user which may have been waiting to be delivered
while the user was offline are then re-encrypted and resent automatically by the
sender, without the sender having had an opportunity to verify whether the reci-
pient is the person intended to receive the message. A sender is notified after the
event if the sender has opted to turn on a notification in settings, but not other-
wise. “This re-encryption and resending of previously undelivered messages
could potentially allow a third party to intercept and read a user’s undelivered
messages in a situation where, for example, they had stolen a user’s sim card.
When the third party put the stolen sim card in another phone, they could then
theoretically collect any messages that had not yet been delivered to the user in
R. E. Endeley
DOI:
10.4236/jis.2018.91008 98 Journal of Information Security
question.” [9]. WhatsApp Inc. has since responded to this claim, saying that the
feature in question is a design tradeoff, meant to prevent users from losing their
messages if they switch phones or reinstall the app.
3. Conclusion
While a majority of countries would favor some kind of restriction on access to
unrecoverable encryption, there is no global consensus, and the likely outcome is
a hodgepodge of national policies. According to [10], “Our research suggests
that the risk to public safety created by encryption has not reached the level that
justifies restrictions or design mandates”. Lewis
et al.
further went on to say,
“The encryption issue that law enforcement faces, while frustrating, is currently
manageable”. Communications privacy is a key element of human rights in the
digital era, and developments affecting it ought to be reported. Ultimately, re-
moving WhatsApp E2EE would not be the solution, as criminals could create
their own, similar software that would allow them to communicate securely,
while ordinary users would lose the ability to send genuinely private messages
[6]. Maintaining E2EE in WhatsApp without an encryption backdoor guarantees
genuine privacy in conversations between individuals and group chats. Voice
conversations through WhatsApp messenger feel more natural; users are assured
that no one is eavesdropping on their conversations, and conversations thus
tend to feels more like a face-to-face conversation.
References
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[5] Pascual, A. (2013) Data Breaches Becoming a Treasure Trove for Fraudsters, 2013
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[6] Michalas, A. (2017) How WhatsApp Encryption Works—And Why There Shouldn’t
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