wordpress blog stats
Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Exclusive: WhatsApp’s response to Dr Kamakoti’s recommendation for traceability in WhatsApp

MediaNama got exclusive access to WhatsApp’s response to IIT professor Dr V. Kamakoti’s submission (available below) on enabling traceability on WhatsApp without compromising end-to-end encryption. Submitted by Nilesh Agrawal, a software engineer at WhatsApp, the response argues that Dr Kamakoti’s “proposals would fundamentally change WhatsApp’s platform, fail to achieve their goal and cause significant harm”. Kamakoti had made two proposals in his submission: Make the originator’s number visible to all recipients; or Encrypt the sender’s phone number in the metadata of the message that can be decrypted only by WhatsApp after relevant court orders are produced by the law enforcement agencies Fundamentally change WhatsApp’s platform "force WhatsApp to fundamentally change its platform and wholly undermine its end-to-end encryption as users would be afraid to freely express themselves if their private thoughts would forever be linked to their identities” Proposals not a viable solution to traceability 1. “Neither would correctly identify the originator of unlawful content in the most common ways that internet users share content” "It is common for internet users to copy and paste content obtained from another source. Under both Proposals, [the WhatsApp user] … will be tagged as the originator … even though [s/]he was not the originator.” "Internet is much bigger than WhatsApp, and many people frequently use WhatsApp to share content that they get from many other sources … the Proposal would brand him[/her] as the originator of the content even though [s/]he did not originate it.” "When the person shares [a] screenshot through WhatsApp,…

Please subscribe/login to read the full story.
Written By

Send me tips at aditi@medianama.com. Email for Signal/WhatsApp.

Free Reads

News

Telecom companies are against a regulatory sandbox, as they think information revealed by businesses during the sandboxing process might be confidential should be out...

News

According to a statement, the executive body of the European Union had also sought internal documents on the risk assessments and mitigation measures for...

News

The newly launched partially open-sourced LLM Grok-1 can be commercially used but not trademarked.

MediaNama’s mission is to help build a digital ecosystem which is open, fair, global and competitive.

Views

News

NPCI CEO Dilip Asbe recently said that what is not written in regulations is a no-go for fintech entities. But following this advice could...

News

Notably, Indus Appstore will allow app developers to use third-party billing systems for in-app billing without having to pay any commission to Indus, a...

News

The existing commission-based model, which companies like Uber and Ola have used for a long time and still stick to, has received criticism from...

News

Factors like Indus not charging developers any commission for in-app payments and antitrust orders issued by India's competition regulator against Google could contribute to...

News

Is open-sourcing of AI, and the use cases that come with it, a good starting point to discuss the responsibility and liability of AI?...

You May Also Like

News

Google has released a Google Travel Trends Report which states that branded budget hotel search queries grew 179% year over year (YOY) in India, in...

Advert

135 job openings in over 60 companies are listed at our free Digital and Mobile Job Board: If you’re looking for a job, or...

News

By Aroon Deep and Aditya Chunduru You’re reading it here first: Twitter has complied with government requests to censor 52 tweets that mostly criticised...

News

Rajesh Kumar* doesn’t have many enemies in life. But, Uber, for which he drives a cab everyday, is starting to look like one, he...

MediaNama is the premier source of information and analysis on Technology Policy in India. More about MediaNama, and contact information, here.

© 2008-2021 Mixed Bag Media Pvt. Ltd. Developed By PixelVJ

Subscribe to our daily newsletter
Name:*
Your email address:*
*
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide

© 2008-2021 Mixed Bag Media Pvt. Ltd. Developed By PixelVJ