Apple Wallet, the digital cardholder application, has undergone significant enhancements in recent years, paving the way for a more secure and convenient way to store and manage digital IDs and assets. These advancements are poised to revolutionize various aspects of our daily lives, from streamlining travel and access control to facilitating seamless financial transactions and digital asset ownership. (more…)

iMessage is getting upgraded with post-quantum cryptography to fend off future hackers. Quantum computers might break current methods. (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)

As part of its compliance with the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) legislation, WhatsApp is putting the final touches to introducing platform interoperability with other encrypted messaging apps. In September, EU lawmakers designated WhatsApp parent company Meta as one of six so-called "gatekeepers," along with Google, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, and Microsoft, giving them six months to begin opening up their core platform services to others. The DMA comes into full effect in March 2024. That leaves just a few weeks for WhatsApp and others to bring their services into compliance. However, Wired reports that WhatsApp has actually been working on interoperability for the past two years, and its work is only partially motivated by the looming DMA. According to Dick…

Facebook tightened security on its popular Messenger platform by adding end-to-end encryption for all users. (via Cult of Mac - Tech and culture through an Apple lens)

Meta is rolling out end-to-end encryption for personal messages and calls on Messenger and Facebook, finally delivering on a pledge it committed to some time ago. Messenger encryption originally arrived in 2016 in the form of "secret conversations," and plans to extend the platform's cryptographic features have been floated ever since. According to Loredana Crisan, Head of Messenger, Meta is only now turning on end-to-end encryption for all messages and calls between two people after years spent "rebuilding Messenger features from the ground up." Since 2016, Messenger has had the option for people to turn on end-to-end encryption, but we're now changing private chats and calls across Messenger to be end-to-end encrypted by default. This has taken years to deliver…

Swiss-based privacy startup Proton today announced the availability of its end-to-end encrypted cloud storage service for Mac users with the launch of its macOS app. Proton Drive lets users sync files between Mac and the cloud, access files offline, and free up space on local drives. Unlike iCloud, all data (including metadata) is end-to-end encrypted by default, so that no-one – not even Proton – can see the files. Files in Proton Drive are synced on-demand, meaning they don't take up space on the local computer until they are needed. Meanwhile, files and folders saved in the Proton Drive folder automatically sync online to Proton Drive, and any changes made locally are mirrored across all other devices linked to the…