A separate political faction, headed by Representative Mike McCaul and Senator Mark Warner, has formed a commission of security experts to suss out the issue’s intricacies. The House Judiciary Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee have created a “working group” to study the issue, and held hearings this week. A deeply flawed encryption bill is wending through Congress. “Part of being fun is users not having to worry about privacy and security.”Ī more illustrative example couldn’t have come at a more important time. “We want to make Viber fun to use,” he says. Users share a lot of private data between them, and we want to make sure it’s secure.” Shimlov says users' increasingly frequent requests for end-to-end encryption has less to do with Big Brother than with a carefree user experience. “We did it because it’s a standard we need to meet.

“It’s not necessarily a marketing feature,” says Shimlov. The tech world is embracing encryption on an unprecedented scale, in large part because messaging apps are central to people's lives. Seeing two major messaging platforms make these kinds of announcements so close together doesn't usually indicate a coincidence. It’s tempting to see that row, and the resulting debate over privacy and security in the digital age, a catalyst. Viber's move follows Apple's epic fight over a court order to help the FBI unlock an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernadino terrorists.

Is viber encrypted and private