Soon 100% encrypted messages on Twitter? It’s a possibility. The blue bird social network would study the implementation of end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for private messages between users (DM).
“Feature is under development”
It was cybersecurity specialist Jane Manchun Wong who just made the discovery by decompiling one of the latest updates to the application. “Twitter is back on end-to-end encrypted DMs. There are signs that the feature is in development”, launched the researcher on her Twitter account. A screenshot of the app code is shared. The latter would be used to generate encryption keys for users.
“This number was generated from your encryption keys from this conversation. If it matches the recipient’s phone number, end-to-end encryption is guaranteed”, can we read in the code of the Android application. This new feature could be confirmed by an eloquent sign from the new CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk. The man with 116 million subscribers simply answered ?, a simple wink emoji.
WhatsApp already equipped
End-to-end encryption (end-to-end) guarantees the impossibility of reading a message between the sender and its recipient. Even if they intercepted said message, a third party could not decipher the content of the communication. Competing firm Meta is already using this feature for its WhatsApp Messenger app. The option should also be implemented by default on Facebook Messenger from 2023. On Instagram, the technology would still be in the test state.
However, Twitter is not at its first attempt. The social network had already carried out extensive tests in 2018 before abandoning the idea. At the time, researcher Jane Manchun Wong spotted the changes in the app’s code. Based in Hong Kong, the expert specializes in discovering new features of mobile applications before their official release.
His technique is smoothly carried out: “Companies should include the code for the new feature in the app. I analyze the structure of this code, see if the company added or removed anything, and understand if it’s to fix a bug or if it’s a new feature”she explained to our colleagues echoes beginning of November. For several years, his public observations have been closely followed by the entire new technologies sector.