After Apple, US government targets WhatsApp for encrypted messages

Intimate messaging with strangers on WhatsApp has led to an increase in divorce rates in Italy.WASHINGTON: While the justice department wages a public fight withApple over access to a locked iPhone, government officials are privately debating how to resolve a prolonged standoff with another technology company, WhatsApp, over access to its popular instant messaging application, officials and others involved in the case said.No decision has been made, but a court fight with WhatsApp, the world's largest mobile messaging service, would open a new front in the Obama administration's dispute with Silicon Valley over encryption, security and privacy.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, allows customers to send messages and make phone calls over the internet. In the last year, the company has been adding encryption to those conversations, making it impossible for the justice department to read or eavesdrop, even with a judge's wiretap order.