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I just wrote a comment grousing about yet-another-walled-off-chat-app. But then I did a brief search, and...

Surprise: Allo apparently uses the Signal protocol, which is an open standard. More, it's a standard that included end-to-end encryption. Unless Google deliberately and specifically broke compatibility, it should be possible for an Allo user to communicate with a Signal user, or anyone else with an app that supports the Signal protocol.

At the moment, I stick to SMS because that lets me send a message to someone without caring about what app they happen to have installed. Everyone can receive an SMS. Kind of pathetic, but there we are. But I use Signal to send those SMS messages, so if someone has a Signal-compatible app, it should automatically upgrade the communications channel.

Here's hoping: If this is the beginning of a movement back to open protocols, the world will be a better place...

They might try blocking. WhatsApp could in return implement domain fronting, like Signal does, and they might have to block more than they like: https://whispersystems.org/blo...

>If facebook received an NSL or warrant, it could trivially trigger this "ugly, obvious, risky" mechanism and read "secure" traffic, with little if any visible sign at the sender / recipient.

(cough/) how about bunches of messages randomly going missing?

kindly go read this: https://whispersystems.org/blo...

I have thought about installing Signal, but then I always remember the laundry list of permissions it wants access to in order to install.

Here is a rundown on device permissions for Signal. Most of them seem basically necessary for a functional messaging app.

What is everybody else's opinion on Signal?

I've been using it for a few weeks, and I like it just fine. It is a transparent replacement for my default messaging app, and handles encryption to/from other signal users transparently. An additional perk is a Chrome plugin which lets me send/receive SMS messages from my browser. For a lot of obvious reasons, it is likely to be nowhere near as secure as a set of properly managed PGP keys, but IMO a lot of useful progress in widely deployed crypto has been hamstrung by paranoia, and letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

One disconcerting thing is that it goes through your contact list upon install, and notifys you of all people on your contacts list who have Signal enabled, without the permission of those contacts. This should be configurable, and opt-in. Sad!

It's more complicated thant that

It says it needs access to:

Device & App History

[snip]

All the permissions Signal requires are explained here. They all make sense in context, and many can be disabled without affecting normal use (e.g. location, calendar, camera, etc.).

To answer your question about SMS in particular, OWS says "Signal is capable of functioning as a complete replacement to your phone’s stock messaging application. In order to do this, it needs to be able to send and receive text messages (both SMS and MMS). You can also import your existing messages into Signal when it is first installed, and these permissions allow that database to be read as well."

No privacy? Use Signal.

One more time, with feelings: use Signal. Use Signal. Use Signal.

There's an interesting blog post on Open Whisper that argues why federation will never work.

https://whispersystems.org/blo...

Since I don't use Facebook, my number should be irrelevant to them to serve me advertisement in their platform. Furthermore, I use the anti-social plugins for browsing so they don't get my browsing history either.

If this really bothers you, Signal is a perfectly good alternative to WhatsApp, which is completely open source and with almost identical functionality. Another surprisingly good and also open source alternative is Wire, which doesn't rely on phone numbers, and it's completely multiplatform.

If you can't vote with your dollars, vote with your feet.

The permissions for signal seem pretty insane though. Then again, maybe this is standard these days:
http://support.whispersystems....

Pray Answered: Signal: https://whispersystems.org/

Signal is currently the best solution for secure messages and phone calls. It's an app for Android and iOS, and Chrome has an extension to sync your messages to a desktop chat. But it communicates between phone numbers of course, so if that's not what you want then it's a bit trickier.

The best totally anonymous desktop messaging protocol I am aware of is Pidgin (Windows, Linux) and Adium (macOS) using the "Off-The-Record" extension. I don't know if there's any good solutions for video chat.

WhatsApp supports Signal now.

So does Facebook Messenger.

WhatsApp supports Signal now.

So does Facebook Messenger.

They use the Signal protocol: https://whispersystems.org/blo...

True about the desktop version. They had something that claimed to be a desktop version, but when I ran it the first thing it wanted was a mobile #. Uhh.... my desktop PC doesn't have a phone number!

Signal uses your mobile number as a unique identifier akin to a username. Even if you don't run the app on a phone, you need to give it a mobile number to actually use the service.

That said, Signal is designed to be mainly used on mobile devices. The desktop version is convenient, but isn't really meant to be the primary means of using the service.

True about the desktop version. They had something that claimed to be a desktop version, but when I ran it the first thing it wanted was a mobile #. Uhh.... my desktop PC doesn't have a phone number!

Apparently both the new Allo and WhatsApp use Signal's protocol for end-to-end encryption.

Apparently both the new Allo and WhatsApp use Signal's protocol for end-to-end encryption.

Apparently both the new Allo and WhatsApp use Signal's protocol for end-to-end encryption.

Signal is OSS, uses client-side end-to-end encryption, and features both messaging and video (formerly 'TextSecure' + 'RedPhone'). If the recipient doesn't have Signal, messaging goes out as a regular SMS/MMS (with 'unsecure' warning).

The only information stored on the Signal servers, iirc, are hashes of the phone numbers and corresponding IPs to allow the clients to find eachother.

Apparently they're responsible for the encryption of Google's Allo, too, as well as WhatsApp.

Signal is OSS, uses client-side end-to-end encryption, and features both messaging and video (formerly 'TextSecure' + 'RedPhone'). If the recipient doesn't have Signal, messaging goes out as a regular SMS/MMS (with 'unsecure' warning).

The only information stored on the Signal servers, iirc, are hashes of the phone numbers and corresponding IPs to allow the clients to find eachother.

Apparently they're responsible for the encryption of Google's Allo, too, as well as WhatsApp.

Signal is OSS, uses client-side end-to-end encryption, and features both messaging and video (formerly 'TextSecure' + 'RedPhone'). If the recipient doesn't have Signal, messaging goes out as a regular SMS/MMS (with 'unsecure' warning).

The only information stored on the Signal servers, iirc, are hashes of the phone numbers and corresponding IPs to allow the clients to find eachother.

Apparently they're responsible for the encryption of Google's Allo, too, as well as WhatsApp.

Except Whatsapp is one of the ends. They can view any message in plaintext, this was proven a few months ago.

TL;DR: Never use Whatsapp if you value privacy.

Except for, umm, you know, up-to-date facts. https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp-complete/

Well, they're working on Signal Desktop, but it's currently in beta.

Fuck them all

Well, except for Signal, Cyph, and maybe a few others from the EFF's list.

Nowadays people are turning to apps like Signal and RetroShare. Another interesting option is Ostel. For browsing and other PC apps, running Tor on Whonix fits the bill.

As fas as I'm aware, Apple is the only one working against even involuntary cooperation by making sure that they can't break device encryption by not keeping any keys or access to any keys.

If that is true, I can understand why Snowden praised Apple. Let's be honest about encryption technologies -- they are fickle and difficult even for people who are immersed in technology. For people who aren't tech savvy at all, encryption technologies are 1) not even known or thought about and 2) almost impossible to implement.

As an exemple, look at GPG email encryption. Once you get the whole public key / private key thing, it isn't that hard, but, getting to that point is actually very difficult for most people. Then there are ongoing issues with usage, keys going out of date or weird stuff happening making things produced in one system not readable in another -- just a bunch of administrative crap most people don't want to deal with -- they just want to send a text or an email and get done what they have to get done.

So if Apple can make that seamless, AND Apple cannot play man in the middle and decrypt it -- that is a huge win, one which other companies will surely follow. Things are getting slowly easier in the aftermarket. TextSecure (Android) and Signal (IOS), makes encrypted texting pretty seamless, but most people aren't even aware of these ( https://whispersystems.org/ ). They just use the default texting app on their phone. If that default app did secure encryption by default, that's a good thing.

Redphone since 2010 https://whispersystems.org/ .
Silent Phone since 2012 https://silentcircle.com/ .

Almost fully agree.

All those free messaging services that need all those permissions, you sign up and your contacts list is sent to them.

Suggest a better method. The developers of the popular app TextSecure have posted their thoughts on how to solve this problem, but found no way that both satisfied their needs, scalability, and the user's needs.

Redphone: https://whispersystems.org/ Not P2P, but beats this offering.

Website
Source.

I guess we have to accept that we can't trust The Powers That Be to respect our right to privacy. Fortunately there are options.

I reckon more folks should be installing Open Whisper Systems RedPhone for encrypting their own calls. https://whispersystems.org/

Then there's always the Blackphone handset for more serious business too. https://www.blackphone.ch/phone/

I supposed if you were really paranoid you could run RedPhone on your Blackphone...

is available here.

Enjoy !

... because I can't see anything anywhere else (wtf is this post?) I figured maybe this might be worth mentioning:

Yesterday Moxie Marlinspike announced a new version of TextSecure: https://whispersystems.org/blo...

TextSecure is an encrypted messaging tool - currently for Android, but iOS is in the works. It is open source and has a high focus on privacy and security.

I encourage people to check it out - if you want to Snapchat securely and privately, then using an open source tool that isn't maintained or built by some giant corporatrox that is simply trying to get bought out by Facebook might be a good idea.

RedPhone and TextSecure can do voice and text: https://whispersystems.org/

Use these instead... https://whispersystems.org/

at Redphone

Yours In Anonymity,
K. Trout, C.T.O.

pgp == static key. as this system of theirs dynamic keys : forward secrecy : no single key would be used twice.
if I store all encrypted messages and at some point I compromise the pgp key, I get access to all past/future -assuming you don't notice-- messages. In the case of their system if I compromise a key I get access to 1 message
https://whispersystems.org/blog/asynchronous-security/

The TextSecure Protocol

TextSecure's upcoming iOS client (and Android data channel client) uses a simple trick to provide asynchronous messaging while simultaneously providing forward secrecy.

At registration time, the TextSecure client preemptively generates 100 signed key exchange messages and sends them to the server. We call these "prekeys". A client that wishes to send a secure message to a user for the first time can now:

Connect to the server and request the destination's next "prekey."
Generate its own key exchange message half.
Calculate a shared secret with the prekey it received and its own key exchange half.
Use the shared secret to encrypt the message.
Package up the prekey id, the locally generated key exchange message, and the ciphertext.
Send it all in one bundle to the destination client.

The user experience for the sender is ideal: they type a message, hit send, and an encrypted message is immediately sent.

The destination client receives all of this as a single push notification. When the user taps it, the client has everything it needs to calculate the key exchange on its end, immediately decrypt the ciphertext, and display the message.

With the initial key exchange out of the way, both parties can then continue communicating with an OTR-style protocol as usual. Since the server never hands out the same prekey twice (and the client would never accept the same prekey twice), we are able to provide forward secrecy in a fully asynchronous environment.

Unless, you know, they decide to tap your line at the cell tower.

In that case, make sure you use a red phone to encrypt your call, just in case.

Currently Android-only, but there's RedPhone and TextSecure for encrypted phone calls and text messages. I you're willing to move off text, OTR is a great encryption protocol for IM with client support on most OSes including Android and iOS. For the high-effort version, you could even setup your own XMPP server (and setup accounts on it for your friends) so Google (or whoever you decided to use as an IM provider) wouldn't know who you were talking to and when.

E-mail encryption is simply as harder problem UI-wise because you have to pre-arrange keys. It doesn't help that most users access e-mail from a bunch of different devices; personally, I just don't bother with e-mail encryption and treat all e-mail contents as public.

https://whispersystems.org/
Moxie Marlinspike sends his regards.

Free, OSS Redphone, or a commercial solution such as PrivateGSM.

... as for avoiding the collection of 'metadata', such as who called whom and when, well... roll your own GSM network. ;)

Free, OSS Redphone, or a commercial solution such as PrivateGSM.

Not just a Saudi problem - Obama thinks snooping on messages is just fine and dandy as long as it is not done to members of his Master Race. So far. May I once more bring people's attention to the Open and Free SMS encryption via the Textsecure Android app, and the disaster- (and government-) resistant mesh networking of Project Byzantium which now runs on a Raspberry Pi. They are becoming more and more relevant, and soon we shall have to switch to darknets to do anything non-commercial. Get with the program early, folks.

“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after generation.” -- Pearl S. Buck

Given that monitoring is impossible to prevent or really limit, all efforts should be made in shaming those taking bad ACTIONS based upon collected data.

It is not impossible to prevent or limit.

There are many projects working on software and technologies to do just that. Some are:

What you're saying
RedPhone and TextSecure: https://whispersystems.org/
Wickr: https://www.mywickr.com/en/index.php/
Parley.co: http://parley.co/
Silent Circle: https://silentcircle.com/
Seecrypt: https://www.seecrypt.com/

Who you're saying it to / who or where you are
Tor: https://www.torproject.org/

Both (for the most part)
LEAP: https://leap.se/ (Full disclosure: I am a developer on this project)

to name a few :)

Admission: I am not completely familiar with the details of many of these projects