News / National
Facebook, WhatsApp refuse to give Chinamasa private data access
12 Nov 2017 at 12:43hrs | Views
The World's largest messaging platform WhatsApp and its parent company, Facebook have refused to give the Zimbabwean government access to private user data.
In the recent development Zimbabwe, became the latest country to be given the cold shoulder.
The Zimbabwean government recently set up a separate ministry to perform the job of a junior police officer in policing the social media.
ZimEye last week telephoned the Cyber Crime Minister Patrick Chinamasa to ask him on his new role. He answered and began the interview following an introduction; but upon being questioned on the role of spying on people, he became mum. Upon further questions being raised on his abilities for the new task, he hung the phone up.
In the US, FBI Director Christopher Wray disclosed that encryption has blocked all intelligence investigations, saying his agency has been unable to gain access to data from nearly 7,000 mobile devices.
"To put it mildly, this is a huge, huge problem," Wray said. "It impacts investigations across the board—narcotics, human trafficking, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, gangs, organized crime, child exploitation."
Encryption on devices makes data unreadable without a key, meaning conversations sent through encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook messenger are accessible only through the device - which is usually protected by a password. Other devices have a biometric gate access through the use of a fingerprint.
It has thus become clear the Cyber Crime Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Zimbabwe's Central intelligence Organisation, CIO, all have no ability whatsoever to read people's Whatsapp messages.
The discovery has seen for instance the British government begin pressing ahead with new legislation to ban Whatsapp in that country.
"That is something we are looking into but we have failed so far, but if the Americans can't, it does not necessarily mean we can't ," one CIO agent admitted in Harare last year.
Encryption is a sophisticated process of encoding messages or information in such a way that only the authorized people can read it.
A number of popular messaging services – including WhatsApp, iMessage and Snapchat – currently scramble communications between their users, the UK Telegraph reported.
The only way the intelligence agents could possibly read Whatsapp messages is by voluntary procurement. This is when a user has surrendered their mobile-phone or a receiving gadget has fallen into the hands of the CIO. Even hacking is not possible and the only form of intrusion is possible when the owner or user, volunteers to reinstall their account onto an infected device.
Using Spy Software Some dodgy companies on the internet have begun claiming that using a spy software program one can easily snoop into WhatsApp messages.
Although there is large number of companies marketing so called WhatsApp Spy Programs on the market today, none of them work without a voluntary window having been specifically opened at the host device and that by the user themselves. There thus exists no method whatsoever that can make it possible to read messages remotely.
In the recent development Zimbabwe, became the latest country to be given the cold shoulder.
The Zimbabwean government recently set up a separate ministry to perform the job of a junior police officer in policing the social media.
ZimEye last week telephoned the Cyber Crime Minister Patrick Chinamasa to ask him on his new role. He answered and began the interview following an introduction; but upon being questioned on the role of spying on people, he became mum. Upon further questions being raised on his abilities for the new task, he hung the phone up.
In the US, FBI Director Christopher Wray disclosed that encryption has blocked all intelligence investigations, saying his agency has been unable to gain access to data from nearly 7,000 mobile devices.
"To put it mildly, this is a huge, huge problem," Wray said. "It impacts investigations across the board—narcotics, human trafficking, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, gangs, organized crime, child exploitation."
Encryption on devices makes data unreadable without a key, meaning conversations sent through encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook messenger are accessible only through the device - which is usually protected by a password. Other devices have a biometric gate access through the use of a fingerprint.
The discovery has seen for instance the British government begin pressing ahead with new legislation to ban Whatsapp in that country.
"That is something we are looking into but we have failed so far, but if the Americans can't, it does not necessarily mean we can't ," one CIO agent admitted in Harare last year.
Encryption is a sophisticated process of encoding messages or information in such a way that only the authorized people can read it.
A number of popular messaging services – including WhatsApp, iMessage and Snapchat – currently scramble communications between their users, the UK Telegraph reported.
The only way the intelligence agents could possibly read Whatsapp messages is by voluntary procurement. This is when a user has surrendered their mobile-phone or a receiving gadget has fallen into the hands of the CIO. Even hacking is not possible and the only form of intrusion is possible when the owner or user, volunteers to reinstall their account onto an infected device.
Using Spy Software Some dodgy companies on the internet have begun claiming that using a spy software program one can easily snoop into WhatsApp messages.
Although there is large number of companies marketing so called WhatsApp Spy Programs on the market today, none of them work without a voluntary window having been specifically opened at the host device and that by the user themselves. There thus exists no method whatsoever that can make it possible to read messages remotely.
Source - Byo24News
