WhatsApp is the safest platform for Zimbabweans to use

“Authorities in Zimbabwe will never be able to read any WhatsApp messages as it offers end to end encryption. This means not even WhatsApp themselves can read our messages, the only people who can see the message are the sender and receiver, period.”

Dear Editor,

May you please allow me to request a favour on behalf of the Zimbabwean people; I want to ask if you can share the below information with the rest of the populace, using your platform, as its difficult to reach the masses via platforms such as Twitter. You can obviously summarize this email, as long the key message isn’t distorted.

This is regarding the false threat released by some authorities in Zimbabwe that they can trace people sharing stuff on social media as all sim cards in Zimbabwe are registered.

That may be so, but they can only see what users share on Twitter or Facebook, but that really doesn’t depend on one’s sim card, which leaves us with WhatsApp as the only other popular app. They’ll never be able to read any WhatsApp messages as it offers end to end encryption. This means not even WhatsApp themselves can read our messages, the only people who can see the message are the sender and receiver, period.

Law enforcement agencies in developed countries such as the US don’t even have the technology to break the encryption, and its ludicrous to think the broke zanu government can succeed where the Americans failed. Anyway, even if zanu wasn’t broke, technology to break this encryption does not exist as we speak.

WhatsApp is the safest platform for Zimbabweans to use under the circumstances and existing environment. The zanu pf bastards are aware of this, so they’re trying to push people off that platform onto communicating with less secure Platforms that they can easily intercept and monitor, like Twitter , Facebook, email, etc.

That is why they blocked WhatsApp this morning – it’s no coincidence this was the only app they blocked – they’re worried about what people can share on there without them being able to see. They are scared of getting caught unawares. What I strongly urge people to do is to ensure they update their WhatsApp application, older ones don’t support encryption.

If they do that there’s nothing the government can do. They can only try to block the protocol that WhatsApp uses, but with use of VPN this can easily be circumvented. The only other way they can access any messages communicated over WhatsApp is if they get physical access to the handset, and users should just get into the habit of deleting messages after reading them; you don’t want to be caught with such texts on your phone.

That threatening letter was written by an idiot, who probably hasn’t got a clue how encryption works , and it must be dismissed with the contempt it deserves.

Thanks and regards, @HomesickDiaspo3