WhatsApp: is the latest news dangerous?

For a couple of weeks Whatsapp has one new function, or at least it would have it if any of its competitors asked for it. We are talking about “interoperability” among the chat platforms, imposed by the European Union with the Digital Markets Actwhich forces WhatsApp to allow smaller platforms to exchange messages with the 2 billion-user app.

From Whatsapp to Telegramfrom Signal to WhatsApp, from Threema to WhatsApp, from WhatsApp to Viber (and vice versa) and so on. But this innovation, which to tell the truth was wanted more by Europe than by users, is running into two very big obstacles: the safety and the (very scarce) will of other apps to participate in interoperability.

WhatsApp encryption

Now all messaging apps, including WhatsApp, are equipped with a system end-to-end encryption (E2EE). This encryption requires that encryption be used to decipher messages and read them cryptographic keys which are stored not on the platform’s servers, but directly on the phones or computers used by users.

The apps hold the keys themselves, so when you have to have two different apps communicate, both with E2E encryption, it’s a big problem because you have to create some sort of bridgewhich can only rely on an external server and no longer on devices.

The well-known cybersecurity company Kaspersky, for this reason, published a post on its blog reflecting on the dangers that could arise from this solution which, in practice, betrays the essence of end-to-end encryption. It is clear that, if this bridge is on an external server, thousands of hackers they would try to attack this server to gain access to the chats of millions of users.

Kaspersky gets straight to the point, to the heart of the matter: “Cryptography experts are generally very skeptical about the idea of ​​cross-platform E2EE. Some experts believe the problem can be solved, for example by placing the bridge directly on the user’s computer or by having all platforms adopt a single decentralized messaging protocol. However, the big fish in the messaging market are not swimming in that direction at all. It is difficult to accuse them of laziness or inertia: all practical experience shows that reliable and easy-to-use message encryption within open ecosystems is difficult to implement“.

Interoperability? No thank you

The blog post from the well-known cybersecurity company is equally honest when it counts platforms actually interested to implement interoperability: on 8 platforms taken into consideration, only one declared herself interested (Matrix), while another declared herself openly against due to privacy and security issues (Threema).

From all other platformshowever, it simply didn’t arrive not even a hint on the possibility of integrating your chats with those of WhatsApp.

Also because it would be a lot of work, as already seen, which It’s not even mandatory: the European DMA, in fact, only recognizes WhatsApp as a player large enough to influence the chat market, and only forces WhatsApp to open. All the smaller platforms, including Telegram which is sailing towards one billion users in the world, are free to join or not to join to interoperability.