Main Highlights:
- Facebook has released one of Messenger’s most significant securities and privacy updates as part of its ongoing effort to make all of its products more secure.
- As part of a pilot program to improve the platform’s overall usability, Messenger has begun rolling out end-to-end encrypted voice and video calls.
- End-to-End Encryption for Group Chats and Calls was announced in a Facebook post dubbed Meta by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
- End-to-end encryption, or E2EE (End-to-End Encryption), is a security feature that prevents third parties from obtaining access to private information transmitted during phone calls and online chats.
Facebook has released one of Messenger’s most significant securities and privacy updates to make all of its platforms more secure. It is part of its ongoing effort to make them all more secure. To improve the overall usability of the platform, Messenger has begun rolling out end-to-end encrypted voice and video calls as a pilot program.
In a Facebook post, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, now known as Meta announced an end-to-end ‘encryption for group chats and calls.’ Facebook will use end-to-end encryption to protect group chats, audio and video calls, and other Messenger app features in the future.
End-to-End Encryption, also known as E2EE, is a security feature that prevents third parties from accessing private information transmitted during phone calls and online chats. This feature has been available for individual text messages since 2016.
What do you need to know about end-to-end encryption for group chats and calls?
After a long period of anticipation, WhatsApp has finally made end-to-end encryption available for both Android and iOS users. This feature, which saves users’ chat history, is included in the latest E2EE update. The user can only access this backup, and it cannot be accessed by anyone else or by the company.
It will be possible to use this new feature if you have the most recent version of the Messenger app installed on your device. This feature can be enabled by going to Settings > Chats > Backups and selecting End-to-End Encryption Backup from the drop-down menu.
What exactly is “end-to-end encryption”?
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) encrypts data transmissions from one system or device to another to prevent unauthorized access to data while it is in transit.
Data is encrypted on the sending system or device, and only the intended recipient can decrypt the information. Because of this, the message cannot be intercepted by Internet service providers (ISP), application service providers (ASP), hackers, or any other entities or services along the path from its origin to its final destination.
How does Facebook implement end-to-end encryption?
The cryptographic keys that are used to encrypt and decrypt the messages are stored on the endpoints. This method makes use of public-key cryptography to protect its data.
The use of asymmetric encryption allows for sharing a public key with others while maintaining the secrecy of a private key. A message can be encrypted and sent to the public key owner after the key has been shared with others, known as asymmetric encryption. To decrypt the message, the recipient must have access to the private key, also known as the decryption key.
When two people communicate online, an intermediary is almost always present in the exchanges between the two parties. A wide range of organizations provides intermediaries between the user and the Internet service provider through servers (ISP). Because E2EE uses critical public infrastructure, intermediaries can’t eavesdrop on messages sent between parties.
The embedding of a public key in a certificate that a trusted certificate authority has signed enables it to be verified that the recipient is, in fact, the person who generated the public key in the first place (CA). The authenticity of a certificate can be determined if it is signed by a certificate authority (CA) whose public key has been widely disseminated and is well known. The CA would likely refuse to sign a certificate if the recipient’s name was associated with a different public key than the one used to sign the certificate.
