A fighting chance against instant messaging giant WhatsApp, the European Union (EU) has proposed new changes to its Digital Markets Act. However, Will Cathcart, WhatsApp’s head of meta, says that the proposed changes will only make users vulnerable to cybercrime.
talking to platformerCathcart said, “I have a lot of concerns about whether this will breach or seriously undermine privacy, whether it will break the security work we’ve done that we’re particularly proud of, and whether This will really lead to greater innovation and competitiveness”.
What is the EU proposal?
The EU’s proposed changes to the Digital Markets Act require that major instant messaging applications adopt interoperability so that users can send messages to different apps from a single platform.
The EU said that the lack of interoperability has resulted in the monopoly of some platforms. It thus discourages new applications from entering the market, he said.
negative side of change
The measure will stop operating end-to-end encryption, a feature that is crucial to the security that WhatsApp offers to its users.
The proposal could also open the way for hackers to attack WhatsApp accounts. Cathcart flagged concerns about privacy and digital security as an unintended consequence of the Digital Markets Act.
“We have seen a lot of apps that just go out and market themselves as bulk messaging on the WhatsApp network. What happens when one of them wants to interoperate,” Cathcart said.
Former Chief Security Officer of Facebook Old ledge“How do you tell your phone who you want to talk to, and how does the phone find that person? No way to allow end-to-end encryption without relying on each provider to handle identity management.” The goal is for all messaging systems to treat each other’s users exactly the same, so it’s a privacy and security nightmare”.
End-to-end encryption for WhatsApp
A feature provided by Meta’s instant messaging app, end-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a method of secure communication that prevents third parties from accessing data while it is transferred from one end system or device to another. Is.
In E2EE, data is encrypted on the sender’s system or device, and only the intended recipient can decrypt it. As it travels to its destination, the message cannot be read or tampered with by Internet Service Provider (ISP), Application Service Provider, hacker or any other entity or service.
End-to-end encryption has emerged as a major hurdle to be resolved before the EU takes the next step towards interoperability of messaging services.
Another problem could be preventing the spread of hate speech, misinformation and spam. in present. WhatsApp bans millions of accounts every month for sending spam and hate messages. With interactivity on top. How other apps handle such accounts will also be a concern.
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