An online privacy tool endorsed by Edward Snowden is being used to protect WhatsApp messages from snooping by encrypting them as they travel the Internet. Open Whisper Systems on Tuesday announced a partnership with Facebook-owned WhatsApp to useTextSecure protocol to essentially scramble messages in transit, hiding whatever is inside from prying eyes. "WhatsApp deserves enormous praise for devoting considerable time and effort to this project," Open Whisper Systems said in a blog post. TextSecure encryption enabled automatically as a default setting is already built into the most recent version of WhatsApp for mobile devices powered by Google-backed Android software, with billions of messages being exchanged daily, according to Open Whisper.



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