Twitter Introduces Encrypted Direct Messages: Early Access for Verified Users
The microblogging platform, Twitter has introduced encrypted Direct Messages on its platform, making private chats between two parties much more secure and safe. Verified users of Twitter are now given early access to the new feature.
Here’s more about it.
Twitter Encrypted Direct Messages
The new encrypted Direct Messages feature has been introduced to the latest versions of Twitter(iOS, Android, and web) and Twitter users will be able to turn on the feature either by clicking on the toggle option present at the top right corner of the messages menu or can be turned on by visiting the info page from a conversation. As mentioned, currently the verified users will only be able to access this new feature which is the early access version.
With the latest version of Twitter, Twitter will start generating private and public key pairs along with a per conversation key. The per conversation key will be responsible for encrypting the messages and the private and public key pairs will do the job of exchanging the encrypted messages between the sender and receiver. Strong cryptographic schemes are used to encrypt each and every message including messages, links, or reactions that the sender sends, which will only be decrypted on the receiver’s device enabling them to read the content.
It should also be made sure that both parties are verified users or are affiliated with a verified organization and are using the latest version of Twitter in order to send encrypted messages.
At the moment, only messages sent to private or individual users can be encrypted and users will be able to maintain upto 10 encrypted chats. The feature is not available in group chats and media files or other such files cannot be sent in an encrypted chat(will display an error).
In order to make things safer, Twitter won’t allow any users to access the encrypted chats on other devices and even if the Twitter app is re-installed on the same device again after uninstalling, Twitter will treat the device as a new device and won’t allow its users to access the chats(encrypted).
You can read more about its features and current limitations which are to be resolved in the full version via the below link.
Say goodbye to prying eyes and hello to secure conversations. We're giving early access to Encrypted Direct Messages v1 to our verified users.
We're excited to get feedback, improve the experience, and roll it out to even more users. Learn more: https://t.co/xl5Juz1pyy
— Twitter (@Twitter) May 11, 2023
