US authorities are reportedly investigating claims that Meta can read users’ encrypted chats WhatsApp A messaging platform, in its own right.
The reports follow a lawsuit filed last week Meta “WhatsApp May Actually Access Users’ Intended ‘Private’ Communications”.
Meta denied the allegation reported by Bloombergcalling the lawsuit’s claim “categorically false and absurd.” It refers to the claim that a move WhatsApp recently lost a lawsuit to support the NSO Group, an Israeli firm that develops spyware used against activists and journalists.
Meta, the firm that sued Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan last week, is responsible for the allegation. Nameless “Brave” whistleblowers from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa.
Quinn Emanuel, in a separate case, is helping to represent NSO Group in an appeal against judgment Last year, a US federal court ordered WhatsApp to pay $167m for violating its terms of service. expansion Pegasus spyware on more than 1,400 users.
“We are pursuing sanctions against Quinn Emanuel for filing a meritless lawsuit designed to grab headlines,” Meta spokesman Carl Woog said in a statement. “It’s the same organization that NSO is trying to help overturn a ban on journalists and government officials that restricts their activities for targeting them with spyware.”
Adam Wolfson, a partner at Quinn Emanuel, said: “Our colleagues’ defense of NSO on appeal is unrelated to the facts disclosed to us and the basis of the litigation we brought for WhatsApp users around the world.
“We look forward to moving forward with those claims, and WhatsApp’s denials are carefully worded to refute the complaint’s central allegation — that Meta has the ability to read WhatsApp messages, regardless of claims about end-to-end encryption.”
Steven Murdoch, professor of security engineering at UCL, said the claim was “a bit outlandish”. “It seems to be mostly about whistleblowers and we don’t know much about them or their credibility,” he said. “I would be very surprised if what they are claiming is true.”
He said that if WhatsApp users’ messages are read, it is likely to be discovered by staff and end the business. “It’s hard to keep secrets in a company. I think if there was a scandal like this, it would have come out of someone at WhatsApp.”
The Bloomberg article cites reports and interviews with officials at the US Department of Commerce, stating that the US has investigated whether Meta can read WhatsApp messages. However, a spokesperson for the department termed these claims as “baseless”.
WhatsApp Bills themselves As an end-to-end encrypted platform, that means messages can only be read by the sender and receiver and cannot be decoded by a server in between.
This contrasts with some other messaging apps, such as Telegram, which encrypts messages between the sender and its own servers, preventing third parties from reading the messages, but allowing them – in theory – to be decoded and read by Telegram.
A senior executive in the technology sector told the Guardian that WhatsApp’s great privacy “leaves a lot to be desired”, given the platform’s willingness to collect metadata on its users, including their profile information, their contact lists and who they talk to and when.
However, “the idea that WhatsApp can access content selectively and retroactively [end-to-end encrypted] Personal chats are a mathematical impossibility”, he said.
Meta’s Woog said: “We continue to sanction Quinn Emanuel for filing a meritless lawsuit designed purely to grab headlines. WhatsApp’s encryption is secure, and we will stand up to those who seek to deny people their right to private communication.”
