![](\"https:\/\/media.wired.com\/photos\/5dc5c7abdc63930009ef0157\/master\/pass\/W25_BrianActon_Dina-Litovsky.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Credit to Author: Boone Ashworth| Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2019 20:06:33 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n The cofounder of the messaging service and the current chair of the Signal Foundation talks about the proliferation of end-to-end encryption in personal communications.<\/p>\n The cofounder of WhatsApp<\/a> and the Signal Foundation<\/a> thinks the use of encrypted communications tools will only increase in the future.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a global education that\u2019s happening,\u201d says Brian Acton, who left WhatsApp in 2018 and now chairs the nonprofit Signal Foundation, which promotes open source, end-to-end encryption in messaging. \u201cBack in the \u201890s, we all got the same hoax emails, and we all learned to ignore them. Today privacy is becoming a much more mainstream discussion. People are asking questions about privacy, and they want security and privacy built into the terms of service.\u201d<\/p>\n Acton spoke onstage with WIRED writer Steven Levy<\/a> on Friday at the WIRED25<\/a> conference in San Francisco.<\/p>\n "We want to be in the business of not knowing the people who are using the product."<\/p>\n Brian Acton, the Signal Foundation<\/p>\n Acton cofounded WhatsApp in 2009, and he began working with Signal cofounder Moxie Marlinspike in 2013 when they began the process of incorporating end-to-end encryption into WhatsApp. The time was right to do so, says Acton. WhatsApp had 400 million users. As more and more people began using the service, WhatsApp drew the attention of law enforcement officials. Subpoenas for user information were rolling in. Acton grew afraid that WhatsApp would turn into a mass surveillance dragnet.<\/p>\n