In
September Iran newspaper Khabaronline
claimed that Viber conversations can be monitored by Iranian
government agencies.
In
the piece entitled “Are Viber and WhatsApp really monitored
easily?” the paper quoted a “computer expert” named Mani
Haghshenas who stated: “It is possible for users to use Internet
networks that shut down certain security protocols and disallow Viber
to encrypt messages, and, ultimately, a network such as Viber would
prefer to switch to a normal message transmission mode, in order to
avoid permanent nonoperation of its application for some of its
users. The country’s filtering systems may sometimes block and
disable the security and communication protection capabilities of an
application, and in order to continue its operation, such
applications may automatically have to provide their services to
their users without encryption, and such circumstances would assist
the governments to control and tap communications.”
A
Viber Company representative refuted these claims and told the
International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that the application
communications are encrypted and as such it is not possible for third
parties to monitor messages. “All text messages sent through Viber
on its supported platforms are encrypted. Media messages, such as
photos and videos, are encrypted on Viber for iOS, Viber for Android,
Viber for Windows 8 and Viber for Windows Phone 8.”
