With the widespread use of smartphones, more and more individuals, companies and other organizations have increasingly turned to applications that promise the lure of “privacy” or of “encrypted communications.” 

However, not all end-to-end encryption platforms are created equal.

This piece provides a general overview of different types of commercially available encrypted communications and the ramifications of using one over another.  This BLOG does not cover ITAR-protected, High Assurance encryption methods including the use of Inline Network Encryptors, CSfC, or similar Type 1 Products from the Intelligence Community or other sources.

The focus here is squarely on Layer 7 end-to-end encrypted applications that can be readily purchased and deployed on smartphones and potentially on other client compute platforms (such as Microsoft Windows).

Commercial End-to-End Encryption Options

Many Consumers are familiar with popular Smartphone applications that can be readily downloaded on the Application Stores such as WhatsApp or Signal.

There are many more examples such as Telegram, Messenger, and Discord but for brevity’s sake, we will concentrate on the two most well-known and most used commercial options.

Let’s take a closer look at both below:

• WhatsApp –Developed, owned and operated by Meta Corporation the company that owns Facebook and is controlled by CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg. WhatsApp was founded in 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum. Initially, it focused on providing a simple, ad-free messaging platform. By 2014, WhatsApp had over 400 million active users worldwide.
• Signal - Signal traces its roots back to May 2010 when Whisper Systems, a startup co-founded by security researcher Moxie Marlinspike and roboticist Stuart Anderson, launched two apps: RedPhone, an encrypted voice calling app and TextSecure, an encrypted texting program. These early endeavors laid the groundwork for Signal’s development and in 2011, Whisper Systems was acquired by Twitter. Signal emerged as the successor to RedPhone and TextSecure.The non-profit Signal Foundation was established in February 2018 with initial funding from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton.

KoolSpan’s Unique Differentiators and Approach

Unlike both WhatsApp and Signal, KoolSpan takes an approach where the Customer (typically an Enterprise or Government user) can house the back-end server on their own premises behind their company’s firewall or in a hybrid or cloud infrastructure of their choosing.

The customer owns both their “back-end” server infrastructure and their client device software (which is available for Windows OS, IOS, or Android).  All traffic is passed in an encrypted manner using AES-256 encryption algorithms. It is notable that Koolspan’s Data at Rest (DAR) and Data in Transit (DIT) crypto is National Institutes of Technology (NIST) Certified.  This means KoolSpan maintains its own certificate on the NIST site for FIPS 140-2 and soon FIPS 140-3 protection and can be found via this link NIST 4560.  We don’t just “leverage” third-party encryption libraries, we maintain our own.

Unlike both WhatsApp and Signal, KoolSpan’s position is that your data belongs to you – as an enterprise or government – to do whatever you want with this information.

KoolSpan’s focus is Enterprise Grade messaging deployed and managed by traditional, centralized IT.  In this manner, an enterprise can remain secure as well as being able to ensure legal compliance relative to e-discovery and other mandates.

WhatsApp is owned by Meta which is mostly a marketing and advertising related company. It’s not controlled by your own centralized IT organization and does not meet various mandates relative to record retention, archiving, e-discovery, etc.

Similarly, Signal is not in the enterprise business.  Rather, they are a consumer focused technology and while they have a pretty good record of privacy, one never knows how data and metadata are being used as it’s outside the control of your own, locked-down, IT environment.

KoolSpan provides an easy to use, intuitive interface to communicate across your government or enterprise via three different client offerings – from IOS to Android to Windows desktop.  With KoolSpan, your professional, centralized IT people regain control over messaging, file sharing and other collaborative tasks.

For more information visit koolspan.com and  contact us