Displaying items by tag: WhatsApp

Secure messaging applications that offer end-to-end encryption — like Telegram, WhatsApp and Signal — can leak users' confidential information through session hijacking because they depend on the operating system they are running on to protect application state and user information.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has suggested that a regulatory entity which can investigate and curb the influence of technology giants Google and Facebook be set up, as part of the recommendations in a preliminary report from its inquiry into digital platforms.

WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton has spoken publicly for the first time since quitting Facebook — which acquired the encrypted messaging app for US$22 billion in 2014 — but apart from some intricate detail, has revealed nothing apart from what emerged when the news of his leaving the social media giant broke in June.

The founders of Instagram, which was bought by Facebook in 2012 for US$1 billion, have decided to leave the parent company, becoming the second prominent resignation from the company in recent times.

A think-tank based in New Delhi has filed a petition in India's Supreme Court accusing WhatsApp of breaching certain local rules, even as the Facebook-owned company is under pressure over a spate of deaths caused by rumours being spread through the platform.

WhatsApp has told India that it will create tools to fight "sinister" messages and help the authorities to stop the flood of hate that has been spread over the app leading to deaths in the country.

Telecom operators in India have been asked to devise methods of blocking Facebook and WhatsApp in the event that these applications are misused, Reuters reports.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has started an inquiry into regulation of wholesale mobile voice and SMS services – and whether to vary or revoke the domestic mobile terminating access service declaration or to make a new declaration.

Undeterred by its recent travails, social media giant Facebook has started asking large American banks to share detailed information about their customers in order that it can offer new services to its two billion-plus users.

In its first move to make money off WhatsApp, Facebook has increased the functionality of the WhatsApp Business app that it has been testing for a few months, allowing companies to send messages to customers through the app.

Cloud communications provider Twilio has announced an API for WhatsApp, extending the platform's messaging capabilities to include the popular service.

The Indian Government has indicated to Facebook that it will have to introduce "traceability and accountability", in order to ensure that provocative messages sent on WhatsApp can be traced to their source, or face legal action.

Facebook is rolling out software changes to make it harder for WhatsApp messages to be forwarded following complaints that spreading of rumours led to deaths in India.

Global telecommunications companies are under intense pressure to adapt in a rapidly changing market, as they face dramatic changes in the political, business, and economic environment and the accelerating pace of technological innovation, according to a new risk report.

India has warned popular mobile messaging service WhatsApp that it must act immediately to stop the circulation of incendiary messages that have caused deaths in many states such as Assam, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tripura and West Bengal.

Users of the end-to-end encrypted messaging service WhatsApp can expect to be deluged by ads soon, after the founders of the program, who sold it to Facebook, ended their association with the social media giant.

The chief executive of WhatsApp, Jan Koum, says he is leaving the company that he and co-founder Brian Acton sold to Facebook in 2014 for US$19 billion.

Everyone wants to disrupt digital payments, with Facebook-owned WhatsApp's recent launch of its beta peer-to-peer digital payments service in India no exception, according to tech analysts GlobalData.

After the demise of the Ubuntu Phone, Linux users appear to be placing their hopes for a mobile device on the Librem 5, a smartphone that managed to raise much more than it asked for in a crowd-funding drive. The company behind it, Purism, has said that it hopes to have phones ready next year.

Government functionaries in many countries appear to be obsessed with the idea that breaking encryption will lessen the quantum of crime – Australia's Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is but the latest to voice the need for access to encrypted communications.