Apple: Relax, we can’t read your iMessage conversations

Apple is saying that it can’t and doesn’t read through the text conversations within its iMessage messaging service, nor can anyone else.

That information is contrary to findings from research firm QuarksLab, which earlier this week called Apple’s claim of iMessages’ impenetrable encryption “just basically lies.” Previously Apple’s iMessage had enjoyed praise of sorts from the DEA, who said that trying to crack the program’s encryption was a real challenge.

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“iMessage is not architected to allow Apple to read messages,” Apple told AllThingsD. “The research discussed theoretical vulnerabilities that would require Apple to re-engineer the iMessage system to exploit it, and Apple has no plans or intentions to do so.”

Basically, Apple is saying that it built iMessage to withstand outside security breaches, and since that’s the case, even the company cannot listen in on your messages without reverse engineering what it has built.

Personally, I just assumed Apple already had the ability to read my iMessage conversations, which didn’t make me feel great. At the same time, telecom companies can do the same and have actually shared that information with the government, per the recent NSA data collection scandal that we’re still in the middle of dealing with.