In an article over at The Verge it has come to light that for the time, Twitter has put a halt on it’s work towards encrypting direct messages. News of this was leaked back in an October article at The New York Times which detailed that fall out after the NSA revelations came to light of the snooping practices the government was engaged in. Many companies in response to the NSA revelations began work on encrypting all of their data in order to not lose business from customers, many from overseas, who would grow hesitant in doing business knowing their data could be easily be read.
The Verge cites that the halt in Twitter’s progress is most likely not due to them shelving their core beliefs, as the company has a strong history of fighting against data requests, but instead due to their overwhelming ‘to-do’ list.
Twitter declined to comment on why its latest encryption effort has stalled, but all signs point to its overloaded to-do list rather than an abandonment of its values. Twitter has been rethinking its messaging mechanism, evidenced by major changes just before its IPO last year, so it may be that there is just too much in flux to invest in encryption right now.
Whatever the reason, hopefully Twitter picks up where they left off as promptly as possible. As start ups and other tech giants begin to factor encryption into their core business models.
Twitter has added perfect forward security and Verge goes on to list other key notes on Twitter’s higher then standard view on user’s data security:
It also recently encrypted its emails to users and has a perfect rating in the 2013 Electronic Frontier Foundation’s “Who Has Your Back?” security report, a perfect rating in the EFF’s “Encrypt the Web” report, and the highest score in the Online Trust Alliance’s ranking of websites on privacy, security, and consumer protection.