In the last few years phones and apps have been touting themselves as better than other phones/services because their messaging has end-to-end encryption, or some other variant of secure messaging. Why do we care?
Edit: Thanks for the answers, everyone!
In: 140
> or some other variant of secure messaging
I will explain this part specifically
End-to-end encryption is touted in particular because it forgoes the need to trust the middleman, which can’t be said about “secure messaging” that does not do end-to-end encryption.
The middleman in this case is the service provider, such as WhatsApp, which is affiliated with Facebook.
Actually, most forms of “secure messaging” are able to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks, e.g. government or creeps listening to network packets. They encrypt from Sender to Provider, and Provider to Receiver. At the very least you need to trust the Provider
End-to-end encryption is encrypting from Sender to Receiver, so even the Provider has no means of reading what is sent.
Why might you not trust the Provider? In most countries the government can subpoena the Provider company for user data under certain circumstances. And that’s the best case since it’s a legal process. In many other countries, like dictatorships, the government can force the Provider to hand over data, or even already have a copy of all the Provider’s data, such as in China. Or you might not trust the Provider just because it’s affiliated with Facebook.
This is where end-to-end encryption helps.
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