To protect your privacy, it’s better to use WhatsApp than iMessage, according to Mark Zuckerberg © SOPA Images – Getty Images
It is the response of the shepherd to the shepherdess. After having suffered severe criticism from Tim Cook on the construction of his famous metaverse, Mark Zuckerberg has decided to respond by hitting Apple where it hurts: in the field of privacy and data protection.
iMessage encryption criticized
While one might think that the boss of a company embroiled in the Cambridge Analytica affair has no lesson to give on the subject, Mark Zuckerberg has found a rather clever angle of attack, that of instant messaging. According to an Instagram post shared by the Meta boss, WhatsApp is much more privacy-friendly and secure than iMessage thanks to its end-to-end encryption features and ephemeral message tool.
Of course, Mark Zuckerberg has a good game defending WhatsApp (which belongs to Facebook) against iMessage: after all, Google also allows itself to openly criticize Apple’s chat tool. But on the aspect of the security of personal data, it is difficult to prove him wrong. Indeed, if iMessage exchanges are encrypted from end to end, the way in which Apple implements this encryption is criticized.
Firstly because, unlike an application like Signal, the source code for iMessage and its encryption protocol is not open. And if the sources of WhatsApp are not available either, the company specifies that it uses the encryption protocol of Signal, which is one of the most famous in the field of cybersecurity. Worse still, iCloud backups of exchanges via iMessage can be viewed by law enforcement if needed, since Apple keeps the decryption keys on its servers. A detail that the boss of Facebook does not fail to underline when he specifies that “we rolled out encrypted WhatsApp backups last year“.
WhatsApp is not flawless
Technically, Mark Zuckerberg is therefore right: the security of exchanges is higher on WhatsApp than on iMessage. That said, the Meta Group’s messaging isn’t flawless either. As shown in an FBI document obtained by Rolling Stones last year, the metadata transmitted by WhatsApp (which is less well protected) can be very verbose and dangerous for the protection of privacy.
If you want to opt for an open source messaging application, secure and available on all platforms, the best is still Signal. You will also have the luxury of not participating in the sterile chapel wars waged by a few multi-billion dollar firms.