Digital Markets Act has caused important changes in the services offered by large technology companies in Europe. One of them is whatsappmetamessaging service, which will soon be compatible with other applications. Although the law has not yet come into force, WhatsApp has explained how it will be possible to communicate with users of other messaging applications.
Dick Brower, WhatsApp CTO, spoke in detail in an interview Wired steps to follow to ensure application compatibility. Brower noted that This feature will be optional and will require users to opt in. your participation to activate it. Messages from other apps will then be sent to a separate inbox known as “third-party chats.”
This feature arrived in WhatsApp beta in September 2023, although it was not yet active because It will come into force from March 2024.. Third-party chats will be the place where you will receive messages from Telegram, Signal, Google and other applications that wish to do so.
The head of the engineering department stated that Companies must sign an agreement agreeing to encrypt communications. with the Signal protocol. If applications use other encryption methods, they must demonstrate that their technology is as secure as the technology used by Meta.
Is WhatsApp Compatibility a Security Nightmare?
One of the main challenges when implementing interoperability is security. Brower states that Meta prefers Signal encryption protocol and that’s why he made sure to document it. “The approach we are trying to take is for WhatsApp to document our client-server protocol and allow third-party clients to directly connect to our infrastructure and exchange messages with WhatsApp clients.”
Some experts believe that while the Digital Markets Act is pro-competitive, User privacy is at risk. Steve Bellovin, crypto veteran and former CTO of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) stated What Compatible end-to-end encryption is extremely difficult or impossible. For his part, Nadim Kobeisi, the author of Cryptocat, noted that the cryptographic methods necessary to comply with the law could seriously deteriorate.
Will Cathcart, CEO whatsappstated in 2022 that were concerned that the Digital Markets Act would disrupt much of the security work they had done.. The WhatsApp chief questioned whether the Commission had consulted experts about the implications of the law. “The response from the panel of security experts that I saw suggests that these experts were, at the very least, not consulted.”
Two years later, WhatsApp believes that achieved a happy medium between interoperability and privacy and security barriers applications. The company will continue to work on compliance until the law takes effect, although it is unknown whether Telegram, Signal or other apps are interested in following WhatsApp’s guidelines for interacting with it.
Source: Hiper Textual
I’m Ben Stock, a highly experienced and passionate journalist with a career in the news industry spanning more than 10 years. I specialize in writing content for websites, including researching and interviewing sources to produce engaging articles. My current role is as an author at Gadget Onus, where I mainly cover the mobile section.
