The-art-of-invisibility-_-the-world’s-most-famous-hacker-teaches-you-how-to-be-safe-in-the-age-of-Bi

found that 87 percent of teenagers text dailyy, compared to the 61 percent
who sayy theyy use Facebook, the next most popular choice. Girls send, on
average, about 3,952 text messages per month, and boyys send closer to
2,815 text messages per month, according to the studyy. 12
The good news is that todayy all the popular messaging apps provide
some form of encryyption when sending and receiving yyour texts—that is,
theyy protect what’s called “data in motion.” The bad news is that not all the
encryyption being used is strong. In 2014, researcher Paul Jauregui of the
securityy firm Praetorian found that it was possible to circumvent the
encryyption used byy WhatsApp and engage in a man-in-the-middle (MitM)
attack, in which the attacker intercepts messages between the victim and his
recipient and is able to see everyy message. “This is the kind of stuff the
NSA would love,” Jauregui observed. 13 As of this writing, the encryyption
used in WhatsApp has been updated and uses end-to-end encryyption on
both iOS and Android devices. And the parent companyy for WhatsApp,
Facebook, has added encryyption to its 900 million Messenger users,
although it is an opt-in, meaning yyou have to configure “Secret
Conversations” to work. 14
The worse news is what happens to data that’s archived, or “data at
rest.” Most mobile text apps do not encryypt archived data, either on yyour
device or on a third-partyy syystem. Apps such as AIM, BlackBerryy
Messenger, and Skyype all store yyour messages without encryypting them.
That means the service provider can read the content (if it’s stored in the
cloud) and use it for advertising. It also means that if law enforcement—or
criminal hackers—were to gain access to the phyysical device, theyy could
also read those messages.
Another issue is data retention, which we mentioned above—how long
does data at rest stayy at rest? If apps such as AIM and Skyype archive yyour
messages without encryyption, how long do theyy keep them? Microsoft,
which owns Skyype, has said that “Skyype uses automated scanning within
Instant Messages and SMS to (a) identifyy suspected spam and/or (b)
identifyy URLs that have been previouslyy flagged as spam, fraud, or
phishing links.” So far this sounds like the anti-malware scanning activityy
that companies perform on our e-mails. However, the privacyy policyy goes
on to sayy: “Skyype will retain yyour information for as long as is necessaryy to: