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CyanogenMod Integrates Text Message Encryption

Posted by Unknown on from the only-criminals-text-with-aes dept.

sfcrazy writes "People are now more concerned regarding their privacy after discovering about efforts made by governments to spy on their communications. The most practical solution to keep messages, emails and calls secure is to use a cryptographic encryption mechanism. However, just like the name of the method, the installation process is complex for most users. To solve this, CyanogenMod will come equipped with built in encryption system for text messages." Whisper System has integrated their TextSecure protocol into the SMS/MMS provider, so even third party sms apps benefit. Better yet, it's Free Software, licensed under the GPLv3+. Support will debut in Cyanogenmod 11, but you can grab a 10.2 nightly build to try it out now.

1 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Spy vs Spy by hawguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously, why are The People trying to play Spy vs Spy with their own government? The government owns the internet. It's as silly to encrypt your license plate as it is your text messages. You have no way to do so. If you're able to send a text, then you're using a carrier of some kind. That carrier has no control over the government's ability to get the data if the government wants to.

    Isn't that the whole point of this project? It allows you to encrypt your data, so unless you think the government has a secret back door into every encryption algorithm, when you encrypt your data, the government can't see it. They may still be able to see who you're talking to (a TOR-like extension might help), but they won't know what you're saying unless they compromise your phone (or happened to compromise the key exchange).

    Remember, it's metadata that we're talking about. "Who talked to who - and what time(s)". Linking people together is what it's all about. They don't need to know what you're talking about, so long as they know who you're talking to.

    Despite what the NSA wants you to think, it's not just "Metadata" -- any analyst who believes that a conversation is with a foreign correspondent can retrieve the entire contents of the conversation -- text, email, etc with nothing more than a slightly better than 50% belief that one party in the conversation is foreign. No warrants or other oversight required.

    Do you think the government should be able to retrieve your private conversations on an analyst's "hunch"?