WhatsApp has been facing a mass exodus in the past few days ever since the messaging app started forcing users to accept their terms of service. The messaging app explained its intention to collect data and share it with other Facebook-owned companies. The data includes sensitive private details that users might not be comfortable to share with any of Facebook-owned companies. 

© Unsplash

However, in a statement by Telegram via a press release that can also be found on Telegram’s blog, CEO Pavel Durov pointed out a few security features of WhatsApp that raise eyebrows. There were numerous “bots” spreading false rumours about Telegram which included doubting Telegram’s one source nature. Durov responded “all Telegram client apps have been open-source since 2013. Our encryption and API are fully documented and have been reviewed by security experts thousands of times. Moreover, Telegram is the only messaging app in the world that has verifiable builds both for iOS and Android. As for WhatsApp, they intentionally obfuscate their code, making it impossible to verify their encryption and privacy.”

© Reuters

When looking further into WhatsApp’s security, it is indeed difficult to verify the instant messaging apps’ encryption and privacy measures. In fact, Turov believes WhatsApp’s encryption may even have backdoors that can be accessed by the U.S. Government. “Every chat on Telegram has been encrypted since launch. We have Secret Chats that are end-to-end and Cloud Chats that also offer real-time secure and distributed cloud storage. WhatsApp, on the other hand, had zero encryption for a few years and then adopted an encryption protocol funded by the US Government. Even if we assume that the WhatsApp encryption is solid, it’s invalidated via multiple backdoors and reliance on backups.”

It is quite disconcerting to even have doubts that our personal messages can be accessed via a backdoor. It remains to be seen how true Turov’s claim really are however for now it is enough to convince many WhatsApp users to switch to other messaging apps. Telegram has seen a sudden surge in new users thanks to WhatsApp’s forced policies and has now amassed over 500 million users. 

If you are looking to switch messaging apps, we recommend moving to any of these three alternatives. 

View the full article