Twitter on Wednesday introduced a new feature that encrypts some direct messages between its users. But there are limitations to the plan. Senders and recipients must meet certain conditions, incl Both must be verified, which essentially means they’re paying for Twitter. Some cybersecurity experts have criticized the feature itself.
basics
Direct messageDMs, or DMs, are messages sent privately between two users, not viewed publicly as most tweets are. And encryption It is a way to store a message in mixed format so that it cannot be read without a private key of some kind.
that Explanation posted in Twitter’s online help center He says users of encrypted messages must be on the latest Twitter apps, must have selected a previous contact and must be both Verified Users or affiliates of verified organization.
“Verified” no longer means what it did on Twitter before. The earliest verification software was free and given mainly to celebrities and high-profile people as a means of authentication. After Elon Musk bought Twitter and took over as CEO in 2022, he set about turning blue badges into just For paid Twitter Blue subscribers to generate revenue.
Why would you want encrypted direct messages?
Twitter has faced privacy issues in the past. In 2020, the accounts of several prominent Twitter users, including current owner and CEO Elon Musk, went viral. been hacked In order to spread the bitcoin scam. At the time, the US Department of Justice said the fraudulent Bitcoin account made more than $100,000 simply by sending messages that appeared to come from Musk, Bill Gates, and other high-profile users asking users to send Bitcoin to supposedly double their payments.
How do you send an encrypted Twitter DM?
If you and the recipient meet the encryption criteria, it does not mean that your direct messages will be automatically encrypted. Twitter explainer page online He says that people eligible to use the feature will automatically see a button that lets you switch between encrypted and regular direct messages. The lock icon will appear on the avatar of the user who receives the message.
Currently, encrypted messages cannot be sent to groups, and can only include text and links, no media attached. Twitter cannot be informed if they are a threat or a problem. Twitter suggests that anyone who receives this type of encrypted message block the sender and file a report on the same account.
encryption limits
The company says in its post that the new encryption does not protect against “man-in-the-middle attacks,” where the conversation could be hacked by “a malicious insider, or Twitter itself as a result of a mandatory legal process.”
The blog post also notes that Twitter has chosen to abandon security forward, which means that if an attacker compromises a device’s private key, that attacker can decrypt all encrypted messages sent or received on the same device.
Controversy over encryption itself
It didn’t take long for cybersecurity experts to weigh in on Twitter’s encryption methods. Even Twitter’s former chief information security officer, Leah Kessner, said this Rival messaging platform Bluesky That feature needs improvement.
“Twitter guys, seriously. I left some design docs somewhere. Please use them,” Kisner saidaccording CNN Business.
CNN Business also quoted a bluesky post from Jonathan Meyer, a computer scientist at Princeton University and a former chief technical officer at the Federal Communications Commission.
“We literally teach (information security) students not to do exactly what Twitter is doing,” Meyer said.
Even Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk himself seemed wary of the new feature.
The old version of encrypted DM just launched. Musk tweeted on Thursday. “Try it, but don’t trust it yet.”
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