Yaay! Cheers to Facebook for bringing out encryption in WhatsApp messages. Earlier, WhatsApp didn’t have any encryption. All your messages till yesterday were sent in open text format. Yes, the text format of Notepad.

Governments and other spying agencies used to enjoy our chats without much effort. In fact, anyone could read your message if you are connected with a Wi -Fi network from their mobile phone. Yes, it’s possible, but we won’t be going over there :p

No worries now, since we have got encryption. Woo Hoo !!

Now, what happens to our messages? As WhatsApp has already told you, it’s an end-to-end encryption, which means that no one can intercept your messages at any cost.

Well, the whole encryption saga for WhatsApp started around mid-2014. Open Whisper systems developed this encryption for WhatsApp (No, not Facebook devs). Open Whisper Systems uses its open source software called TextSecure. It’s owned by Twitter, by the way. Anyone can use this software if the developer is willing to put some security measures in their chat application.

TextSecure uses a number of algorithms, obviously. The primitive or the base algorithms that are used are CURVE25519, AES256, and HMAC-SHA256.  Am sure all the engineering Computer Science undergrads have heard the terms AES and HMAC-SHA.

Well, from these primitives, the double ratchet algorithm comes into place along with a 3DH Handshake. Normally, the AES is said to be one of the toughest encryption. So you can imagine the level of security given to your lovely messages now. But one aspect still makes us wonder. TextSecure has been designed not to expose chats in screenshots. But if your chats are being captured, I’m sure it must have been tailored.

All we can say is that go ahead and text worry-free. But the threat still looms. If you have ever read the terms and conditions of WhatsApp, then they indirectly say that they can access all of your texts. Well, that will apply even if you are under encryption. And also, if the government of a particular country wants to keep an eye on its citizens, it might just give access to it. But consider yourself safe other than these cases :p

Cheers !!