Twitter uses forward secrecy technology for encryption

Twitter Inc said it has stepped up encryption of its service, in the latest effort by a technology company to beef up security following reports of spying on digital content by the National Security Agency.

The San Francisco-based microblogging service said in a blog post yesterday that it recently enabled a technology dubbed forward secrecy for traffic going through its websites, which makes it more difficult for hackers to decrypt information.

"Forward secrecy is just the latest way in which Twitter is trying to defend and protect the user's voice," the company said in the post.

Amid the fallout over NSA spying on digital information, technology companies including Google Inc and Yahoo! Inc have taken measures to strengthen security of their information. Many are using harder-to-crack code to shield their networks and online customer data from unauthorised US spying. The companies, trying to distance themselves from concerns about user data, have said they do not provide NSA direct access to their servers.

Earlier this week, Yahoo! said it will encrypt all information that flows between its data centres. Google has said it was ramping up similar efforts.

Jim Prosser, a spokesman for Twitter, didn't immediately respond to a phone message seeking further comment.

In August, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that works for protections in the digital world, said it was promoting the technology of perfect forward secrecy because it helps make session keys that a server computer generates "truly ephemeral," which helps keep data from prying eyes. The technology is "an important Web privacy protection," the group said.