Tag: mobile messaging

WhatsApp – the pioneer for security-focused online communications for consumers

Some of the popular over-the-top messaging and VoIP platforms are being equipped for personal privacy and security.

This was a feature typically pitched at high-stakes business users but is now being pitched at everyday consumers thanks to the saga occurring in the USA between FBI and Apple where the FBI were wanting the encrypted data held on a suspect’s iPhone.

At the moment, WhatsApp and Viber are offering secure-communications features but this could be rolled out by other messaging/VoIP/videocall platform vendors like Skype, Facebook or Apple. For that matter, WhatsApp have recently made their platform from a subscription-funded platform to a free-to-user platform. They will continue to raise money by offering business-focused WhatsApp communications services.

Platform-wide best-case encryption by default

One of the main features is platform-wide end-to-end encryption which is implemented to “best-case standards” by default.

This means that the data that represents your calls and messages is encrypted by the end devices. Along with that, the user’s public and private keys associated with the encryption algorithm don’t stay on the company’s servers, thus not being at risk of a subpoena or other court order or government mandate. Rather, these are created by the end-user’s device and kept there.

The reference to “best-case” operation in this situation is that if the users are communicating with the latest version of the software that supports newer encryption algorithms, these algorithms are used for the encryption process. This even applies to group conversations where the “best-case” encryption method is implemented if all the correspondents are using the client apps that support that algorithm.

Authentication of contacts and their devices

As part of key exchange between contacts, there is an emphasis on authenticating one’s contacts with some systems like WhatsApp preferring a “face-to-face” method or others like Viber requiring you to read and confirm a password during a call. The former method that WhatsApp implements is for you to scan a QR code

Here, this is about whether you are really talking with the user on their device, in order to circumvent situations like lost or stolen phones, users installing their SIM cards in different devices and “man-in-the-middle” attacks. It was highlighted in Graham Cluley’s blog article about improving your security with WhatsApp.

This will typically be highlighted through the use of an indicator in your contact list that shows if a contact has been authenticated or if they have switched devices.

Concealed text/image conversations

Viber with its ability to conceal a conversation

Viber introduced to their platform the ability for one to conceal a text/image conversation which can come in handy if you are exploiting their functionality to use tablets or regular computers as endpoints for Viber conversations.

Here, you can conceal the conversation so that others cannot see it unless they enter a user-set PIN or password. Situations where this can be necessary could include an innocuous activity like arranging that surprise event through a personal conversation held in a workplace to a traveller who leaves their iPad in their hotel room which can easily be visited by Housekeeping staff.

On the other hand, you could be able to specify whether a text/image chat is to be kept on each other’s devices or to disappear like what has been valued with Snapchat.

Features that could surface in the name of security

As other online-communications platforms jump on to the secure-communications bandwagon, there could be the rise of different features or variations on the above features.

For example, a communications-platform client could implement client-level user authentication where the software can be set up to require the user to log in to the client to start a conversation. Or the primary communications device like the smartphone has to be near a secondary communications client like a laptop before the user can run the software. This feature may be considered of importance with tablets and regular computers likely to be used by other users.

To some extent, an operating system that implements multiple-user operation could allow an online-communications client to switch user profiles and phone numbers so it works totally personally to the user.

There could be the ability for a user to mandate device-level authentication or encryption before a conversation takes place with a contact. This could allow for one to be sure they are talking to the right correspondent.

Other methods of verifying contacts and devices could surface such as the use of NFC “touch-and-go” or Bluetooth data exchange as a way of authenticating users’ devices. The software could also exploit other hardware or software “secure elements” like Trusted Platform Modules as an alternative to SIM cards for Wi-Fi-only tablets or regular computers.

This could even extend to such things as “trusted networks” or “trusted locations” where your caller can know that you are talking privately, based on factors like wireless-network parameters or proximity to particular Bluetooth devices.

Conclusion

What is now happening is that secure online conversations, once a feature that was enjoyed by big business and government, is now becoming available to every individual in the street for free. This allows them to have online conversations without being eavesdropped upon.

Facebook Messenger – native to the Android platform

Increasingly, the iOS, Android and Windows 10 Mobile / Windows Phone app stores are being inundated with over-the-top messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. These work well and provide a better experience for handheld text and voice messaging but they don’t offer a native option for access to these platforms using a regular Windows, Mac or Linux computer.

The Internet-based instant-messaging services started off with the regular Windows, Mac and Linux computers as the main endpoints and it was the arrival of the iPhone that shifted the direction of consumer-focused instant messaging towards mobile devices.

Some of the mobile messaging platforms including social networks with mobile messaging

But the best examples to see of messaging platforms that offer a native client for a regular computer are both the Skype and Viber platforms. Skype has offered a desktop client for their over-the-top communications platform ever since it started and I have seen many laptops run with this program. As well, Viber recently put a strong effort towards creating native desktop clients for their VoIP / messaging service which was initially targeted at mobile users. Viber even added videocalling to their desktop clients before they rolled it out to the mobile clients.

How do you gain access to these services on a regular computer if you don’t have a native client?

These computers are being used for mobile messaging and social networking

Most of these messaging platforms provide a Web front which allows you to use the platform to communicate using your preferred desktop Web browser but this is fraught with problems. In some cases where there isn’t a Web front for the platform, you may have to use an Android mobile-platform emulator along with the Android mobile client to run the messaging-platform app.

This is how we are using Facebook Messenger on the regular computer

These options don’t provide the same kind of experience that a native client would provide for a messaging platform. For example, you would have to keep a browser session alive and dedicated to your messaging platform and all of the user interface would be focused within that session. Or you would have to face performance and reliability issues with the emulator software.

What can a native client offer for the regular computer?

Reduced computing overheads yet taking full advantage of the computer’s abilities

The native client program yields a great benefit in the form of reduced computing overheads required for it to run. This is because there isn’t the need to run a full browser program to use the messaging program. Rather the developer can tune the program to run as smoothly as a regular piece of software for that computing platform.

The main benefit you gain from this is the fact that you can multi-task easily on your regular computer including having your chat with your correspondent without the system underperforming or failing. The more-powerful regular-computer processors can even make light work of the tasks needed to support the messaging platform’s multimedia-communications or encryption capabilities which could lead to a reduced time penalty for encrypting messages or to allow smooth videocalling.

For PC gamers, they can set up a chat session amongst their gaming clan without having to deal with the resident trolls and foul-mouthed miscreants that inhabit the game’s text-chat or voice-chat “party-line” and without taxing their gaming rig’s system resources. With the native desktop messaging clients, the process is similar to what I have described previously for Skype.

Tight integration with the operating system

Most of these messaging programs offer a “store-and-forward” messaging functionality along with a presence indicator. These functions, along with call notification abilities, can benefit from being integrated with the operating system’s interface.

For example, the operating system’s notification area can be used to show new messages and the latest message can appear as a “pop-up” notification. Operating systems that implement task-bars, also known as “docks” in MacOS X, could take these interface elements further by, for example, showing conversation tickers emanating from the icons or representing each conversation as its own icon.

Similarly, you can use these messaging platforms to transfer photos or videos during a conversation with the photos and videos that you send or receive being available through the operating system’s file system.

This appeals to those of us who place value on soliciting video messages as a way to create “vox-pop” video content; or can appeal to those of us who want to print out pictures that we have received. In these situations, the video-editing and photo-editing software that is available for the regular computer is more capable that what is offered for the mobile platforms due to the fact that regular computers offer more processing power than their mobile cousins.

The prevalence of ultraportable computers running regular-computer operating systems

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga convertible notebook – the way to use mobile messaging and social networking

Another factor that concerns the Windows 10 platform is that there is an increasing number of tablets and 2-in-1 computers being designed for that platform and running the common desktop variant of that operating system, the best example being the Microsoft Surface family. These computers, especially the ones with a screen size less than 11”, are being considered as a viable alternative to an iPad or Android tablet.

Similarly, the ultraportable laptops of the Macbook Air and the Ultrabook variety can show their appeal as a mobile communications endpoint especially if you are wanting to dabble with text messaging while you work on that document or want to engage in a videocall.

Users who use regular computers to create content

There is still a large number of users who use a desktop or laptop computer that runs a regular operating system rather than a mobile-platform tablet for most of their computing tasks. This happens both in the workplace and the home and appeals to those of us who spend a long time at the computer, whether to write and answer emails or create content.

It is because of such facilities as keyboards that are conducive to typing, especially touch-typing, and screens large enough for content creation. Similarly, some users even optimise a regular computer for longer working sessions like equipping it with a highly-ergonomic keyboard or one or more large screens to obtain an increased visual workspace.

Being able to manage a mobile-messaging platform on these computers could allow for the ability to start or continue a conversation hosted on these platforms using the larger screen area or improved keyboard. It can be conducive to multi-tasking especially if the goal is to copy data from a conversation in to a document or application; or share information from a document or Web page to a conversation.

Companies and their employees could see this of benefit when they want to establish or maintain a presence on a mobile-messaging platform. Similarly, a mobile-messaging app for a regular computer does have some appeal to PC gamers who want to chat with a small group of team-members while playing an online game.

How is this being made feasible

Apple and Microsoft, who have had strong presence in regular-computer platforms and have presence in mobile-computing platforms, are making it easier to target software for both mobile and regular computing hardware classes. The best example is Microsoft offering the Universal Windows Platform that came with Windows 10. This allowed a software developer to target a program for both the desktop (regular-computer) and mobile versions of Windows 10 with reduced effort and there have been some efforts to make it easy to port iOS apps to the Windows 10 platform.

This could encourage the software developers behind these over-the-top mobile-messaging platforms to support the regular-computer users with very little effort, allowing them to concentrate on making the necessary software play tightly with the operating system.

Conclusion

Providing native support for a mobile-messaging platform on a regular computer can:

• allow improved performance on a regular computer thanks to reduced software overheads
• provide tight integration with the host computer’s operating system that leads to use of the operating system’s user-interface and file-management assets
• take advantage of ultraportable computers that are, in some cases, a viable alternative to a tablet
• tightly integrate with one’s use of a regular computer whether for work or pleasure

As these mobile-messaging platforms of the WhatsApp, Snapchat and Facebook Messenger ilk are being developed, it could be time to work on native clients that work with the regular computer.