Facebook: Messenger’s default e2e encryption could take years

In any case, according to Facebook programmer Jon Millican, users should not expect standard end-to-end encryption with Facebook Messenger for the next few years. Mark Zuckerberg promised that a year ago, but he did not mention a timeline.

The Facebook developer made the statements at the Real World Crypto Conference in New York. “We announced the plan years before we could make it happen,” he said in an interview with Wired on the exchange. He also declined to say when Facebook expects the project to be completed. Wired writes that.

Facebook Messenger already has the option of end-to-end encryption, but this is still an opt-in: users must indicate that they want more privacy, after which a Secret Conversation is set up. It is then encrypted, but normal chat conversations are not.

Despite the presence of the Secret Chats, according to Millican, it is still a big challenge to make e2e crypto standard. “We have more questions than answers at the moment,” he said during his presentation. “Adding E2e encryption to an existing system is incredibly challenging and requires everything from scratch.” His presentation therefore mainly identified more challenges than solutions, according to Wired.

Millican argues that WhatsApp encryption is an unfortunate example: not only would it have taken years, but WhatsApp was a much simpler product at the time of that change than Messenger is today. Nevertheless, not everyone is convinced by Facebook’s argument: A cryptographer at Johns Hopkins University, who also helped introduce Secret Conversations, believes that Facebook apparently hasn’t put enough of its largest stockpile of resources on it for years to come. .

Mark Zuckerberg made the promise of e2e encryption in March of last year. It’s part of the battle to make itself more privacy-friendly following the outbreak of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.