Battle of the Secure Messaging Apps: Signal Triumphs Over WhatsApp, Allo (theintercept.com)

There is no shortage of messaging apps out there, so which one should you be using? If you care about your privacy, you would want your messaging client to be end-to-end encrypted. This narrows down the list to WhatsApp, Signal, and Allo. The Intercept has evaluated the apps to find which among the three is the best from the privacy standpoint. The publication says that while all the three aforementioned apps use the same secure messaging protocol (Open Whisper System's), they differ on exactly what information is encrypted, what metadata is collected, and what, precisely, is stored in the cloud.
WhatsApp:It's important to keep in mind that, even with the Signal protocol in place, WhatsApp's servers can still see messages that users send through the service. They can't see what's inside the messages, but they can see who is sending a message to whom and when.In addition, WhatsApp also retains your contact list -- provided you have shared it with the service. If government requests access to this data, WhatsApp could hand it over.
Allo:The first thing to understand about Google's forthcoming Allo app is that, by default, Google will be able to read all of your Allo messages. If you want end-to-end encryption via the Signal protocol, you need to switch to an "incognito mode" within the app, which will be secure but include fewer features. [...] Allo's machine learning features prevent Google from turning on end-to-end encryption for all messages, since Google needs to be able to ingest the content of messages for the machine learning to work, a Google spokesperson confirmed. Signal:The first thing that sets Signal apart from WhatsApp and Allo is that it is open source. The app's code is freely available for experts to inspect for flaws or back doors in its security. Another thing that makes Signal unique is its business model: There is none. In stark contrast to Facebook and Google, which make their money selling ads, Open Whisper Systems is entirely supported by grants and donations. With no advertising to target, the company intentionally stores as little user data as possible. Signal's privacy policy is short and concise. Unlike WhatsApp, Signal doesn't store any message metadata. [...] If you back up your phone to your Google or iCloud account, Signal doesn't include any of your messages in this backup.But what about Telegram, you ask? A Gizmodo report, also published on Wednesday, says that Telegram's default settings store your message on its unencrypted servers. "This is pretty much one of the worst things you could imagine when trying to send secure messages."

Comments

No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Want a messaging app that is secure, get a peer-to-peer messaging app that does not depend on servers.

Re:No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[Tharkkun]

Want a messaging app that is secure, get a peer-to-peer messaging app that does not depend on servers.

That sounds incredible. So now you must email or call the person you're attempting to chat first and get their IP address as well as make sure the proper ports are open for bi-directional communication. Why didn't anyone think of this already!

Re:No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[JackieBrown]

Honestly, most users don't care about this type of privacy. They just want something that can prevent their spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends/parents from seeing their conversations and more points if there is no record left that their was a conversation.

Re:No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[Anonymous Coward]

Want a messaging app that is secure, get a peer-to-peer messaging app that does not depend on servers.

I think that is impossible. Even peer-to-peer protocols like BitTorrent rely on servers to tell users which other users have the torrents to download from.

There is no way for my phone to send a direct message to another person's phone without having some other devices act as a proxy to tell the two how to communicate. That is, unless you are using broadcast on a wireless network, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Re: No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[Anonymous Coward]

And those users deserve to get hacked, have their documents encrypted and all their money stolen.

Re:No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[NotAPK]

I'm not picking on you in particular, there is a whole rash of posts in this thread going "der, dynamic IPs, der, P2P lol" and no one is thinking at all.

Yes, a distributed server infrastructure is probably (weasel word because I'm not a computer scientist) required for randomly distributed hosts to discover each other across a NAT-heavy dynamic IP internet.

However, the host finding protocol is entirely different to the P2P messaging protocol.

Once the hosts are knows and can be contacted then the P2P protocol can do its thing.

Re:No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[Marxist Hacker 42]

That's what NFC is for.

Re:No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[Anonymous Coward]

Have a look at TOX.
Once you know their public key, you can then find their IP from the "crowd" and have your encrypted and direct conversation.

Re: No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[Dog-Cow]

And those like you deserve to have their faces ripped off and nailed to their parents genitals.

Re:No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[johanw]

Try Silence (former SMSSecure): https://github.com/SilenceIM/S... . It is a fork from TextSecure, the predecessor of Signal, and uses the Signal protocol over SMS. You still need phone providers, so technically you need servers, but you need no account and no registrations.

Re:No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[jrumney]

And talk to all your friends on the same subnet, or with a static IP address. Somehow I don't see this level of security taking off.

Re:No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't that simple. If both ends do not have any open ports (like with typical mobile phone networks), then they cannot communicate with each other. The middleman server is necessary because it allows incoming connections from both ends.

Once the hosts are knows and can be contacted then the P2P protocol can do its thing.

The can be contacted is the part that is missing for many networks today.

Re:No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[Marxist Hacker 42]

What makes you think you are limited to TCP/IP networks?

Re:No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Silence (former SMSSecure): https://github.com/SilenceIM/S... . It is a fork from TextSecure, the predecessor of Signal, and uses the Signal protocol over SMS. You still need phone providers, so technically you need servers, but you need no account and no registrations.

Silence can be installed via the FDroid app.

FWIW, Silence is awesome!

Re:No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[NewYork]

https://prism-break.org/en/all...

Re:No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[NotAPK]

You're absolutely right, but I thought this was a solved problem? From memory (aka wrong) the old Skype client used to operate in a number of modes, and if a client found it could accept inbound connections it would act as a relay server and help hosts to find each other. I read a paper on the protocol once and it seemed very clever. This work is from 2006, and there is much more available. Anyway, keep in mind that's all for the old original Skype protocol, the new stuff under Microsoft is all centralized and different.

So anyway, I wonder if an entirely decentralized, fair, simple, protocol exists for hosts to locate each other. I guess the BitTorrent guys have done a lot of similar work, yet I believe their system definitely does not route connections through other hosts, mostly because no one wants to foot the bill for TBs of bandwidth.

But VOIP and instant messaging are quite different beasts, with considerably less bandwidth requirements.

"The can be contacted is the part that is missing for many networks today."

This comment of yours keeps bugging me...I grew up believing that this *was the internet* and perhaps today's network is a rather different beast indeed...

Re:No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[Anonymous Coward]

**YOU, SENT A MESSAGE!!! You are guilty**. Do you need more?

Re:No App that depends on a Server is "Secure"

[Anonymous Coward]

Serverless routing works just fine. Kademlia was invented in 2002. I remember when emule switched to it.

Re:Telegram is missing.

[CycleFreak]

Seems that the last few sentences address the Telegram service.

Re:Telegram is missing.

[Ksevio]

Uh well if you read to the end of the summary -

But what about Telegram, you ask? A Gizmodo report, also published on Wednesday, says that Telegram's default settings store your message on its unencrypted servers. "This is pretty much one of the worst things you could imagine when trying to send secure messages."

Still confused by Allo

[H3lldr0p]

and it's need to have a machine-learning built into it. It's going to be like that stupid Inbox stuff Google tried pulling a few years back, isn't it? I don't need something to create rules and read my email for me to sort it out. I can do both of those tasks just fine. Doing that doesn't save me effort or mental expense; just the opposite. If I had it turned on, I'd be worried it was screwing something up.

With Allo auto replying for me, I'd be very concerned it would be handing out information to people I didn't want to know certain things in my life. Even though Google is likely going to indemnify themselves in the click-thru, I can't wait for the first lawsuit from someone who was stalked and assaulted because Allo told said stalker where they were.

Re: Still confused by Allo

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Google. Google doesn't care about your privacy. In fact, Google hates your privacy. Don't touch anything from Google. It's an evil company.

Re:Still confused by Allo

[Anonymous Coward]

...I'd be very concerned [Google] would be handing out information to people I didn't want to know certain things in my life.

Very unlikely. The sets of 'people who use Google services' and 'people who want to keep aspects of their life private' don't overlap.

Re:Still confused by Allo

[esperto]

I'm confused by google, I really REALLY can't understand their messaging app strategy.
They had a great, easy, fast, and ubiquitous app with Gtalk, it had an open protocol, integrated with several third party software, had a simple and effecitive desktop client, then, out of nowhere they decided to do hangouts... ok, it added video and some other bells and whistles, but it was worse, it was separate from Gtalk in the begining and just pushed people away. Then they decided to stop supporting gtalk and tried to push everyone to hangouts, which actually pushed everyone to whatsapp, which had better features for mobile, then they starting messing up with hangouts to the point of mine stopping working on mobile network, I could only send or receive messages over wifi (to this day I don't know why), and now, out of nowhere again, they lunch not one, but two SEPARATE apps, that pretty much did the same as hangouts.... and literaly nobody is using, I couldn't even bother to download to check it out, because of what they did previously.
They shot themselves on the foot by messing with software that had a large userbase and instead of building up on it, completely missed the boat on groups, made the interface worse or created a parallel application thinking people would flock to it just because... google.

Re:Still confused by Allo

[swillden]

It's going to be like that stupid Inbox stuff Google tried pulling a few years back, isn't it? I don't need something to create rules and read my email for me to sort it out. I can do both of those tasks just fine. Doing that doesn't save me effort or mental expense; just the opposite.

Inbox is awesome.

The thing you have to understand about Inbox, though, is that it's an e-mail client focused on the needs of people dealing with enormous volumes of email, and people whose email inbox (or at least a subset of it) represents their to-do list. If you get 400+ emails per day, including lots of emails from mailing lists and various automated systems, and including many emails that you don't actually need to read but just scan quickly, Inbox is a lifesaver.

What makes it great?

1. Gmail's labels and filters. The basis for all Inbox goodness already exists in Gmail, and in fact Inbox uses exactly the same infrastructure. The interface to that infrastructure is simplified in Inbox so, for example, common filter creation tasks can be done with a couple of clicks. If you need a more sophisticated rule, or one that does something other than applying a label, you use the Gmail interface and write a filter rule that's as clever and complex as you like (no regexps, unfortunately -- though if you really, really need to you can do it with Apps Script).

2. Bundles. Gmail labels are (optionally) represented in Inbox as bundles, which collapse all of the emails inside them into a single entry in your inbox. When you have a good set of bundles (labels) defined, and good filter rules, hundreds or thousands of emails in your inbox should be represented in 20 or so entries. You can click on one of them and it expands to show all of the emails inside it. Depending on the nature of the bundle, you already have some mental context for the list you're looking at, and how much attention you need to pay. Some bundles I frequently (but not always) archive without looking at them. Some bundles I read every email. Most bundles I just scan the subject lines, click to "pin" the handful that are interesting to me and "sweep" the rest.

Note that it may seem that you can do the same thing with traditional labels/folders and you can, almost. There's a big difference (to me, at least) in having a bundle show up in the inbox, rather than having to look over at the "unread message count" in lists of folders. Also...

3. Deferred bundles. You can specify when bundles should show up. Low-priority mailing list? Set it to show once per week, and Inbox will quietly collect emails all week and not show the bundle at all until Monday morning. Important bundle? The default is to show the bundle the instant any email arrives. There's a once-per-day priority as well. I'd actually like a little more granularity. I'd like to have hourly and twice-per-day bundles (morning and noon).

4. Snooze. This is the feature that makes email into an effective to-do list. I've always used my email as a todo list, leaving emails that are related to tasks I need to do sitting in my inbox, but what happens is that it very quickly becomes cluttered, making it difficult to find the emails I need to keep and those that can go. Also, it become cumbersome to scan through the list of stuff which -- for whatever reason -- I can't work on yet to find the stuff that I can. Snooze fixes all that. It allows you to tell Inbox to remove a message until a particular date/time, with some quick options like "tomorrow", "next week" and "someday". I also often snooze to location. I may check my email when I'm not at the office, just to get through some of the backlog, but I rarely want to type extensive answers on my phone, so I "Snooze to work".

By snoozing away everything that I can't work on right now, it becomes not only feasible but relatively easy to get to "inbox zero", meaning that my inbox is completely empty. Every morning I have a pile of bundles that I can plow through quickly (thanks to t

Re:Still confused by Allo

[Anonymous Coward]

It's going to be like that stupid Inbox stuff Google tried pulling a few years back, isn't it? I don't need something to create rules and read my email for me to sort it out. I can do both of those tasks just fine. Doing that doesn't save me effort or mental expense; just the opposite.

Inbox is awesome.

The thing you have to understand about Inbox, though, is that it's an e-mail client focused on the needs of people dealing with enormous volumes of email, and people whose email inbox (or at least a subset of it) represents their to-do list. If you get 400+ emails per day, including lots of emails from mailing lists and various automated systems, and including many emails that you don't actually need to read but just scan quickly, Inbox is a lifesaver.

What makes it great?

1. Gmail's labels and filters. The basis for all Inbox goodness already exists in Gmail, and in fact Inbox uses exactly the same infrastructure. The interface to that infrastructure is simplified in Inbox so, for example, common filter creation tasks can be done with a couple of clicks. If you need a more sophisticated rule, or one that does something other than applying a label, you use the Gmail interface and write a filter rule that's as clever and complex as you like (no regexps, unfortunately -- though if you really, really need to you can do it with Apps Script).

2. Bundles. Gmail labels are (optionally) represented in Inbox as bundles, which collapse all of the emails inside them into a single entry in your inbox. When you have a good set of bundles (labels) defined, and good filter rules, hundreds or thousands of emails in your inbox should be represented in 20 or so entries. You can click on one of them and it expands to show all of the emails inside it. Depending on the nature of the bundle, you already have some mental context for the list you're looking at, and how much attention you need to pay. Some bundles I frequently (but not always) archive without looking at them. Some bundles I read every email. Most bundles I just scan the subject lines, click to "pin" the handful that are interesting to me and "sweep" the rest.

Note that it may seem that you can do the same thing with traditional labels/folders and you can, almost. There's a big difference (to me, at least) in having a bundle show up in the inbox, rather than having to look over at the "unread message count" in lists of folders. Also...

3. Deferred bundles. You can specify when bundles should show up. Low-priority mailing list? Set it to show once per week, and Inbox will quietly collect emails all week and not show the bundle at all until Monday morning. Important bundle? The default is to show the bundle the instant any email arrives. There's a once-per-day priority as well. I'd actually like a little more granularity. I'd like to have hourly and twice-per-day bundles (morning and noon).

4. Snooze. This is the feature that makes email into an effective to-do list. I've always used my email as a todo list, leaving emails that are related to tasks I need to do sitting in my inbox, but what happens is that it very quickly becomes cluttered, making it difficult to find the emails I need to keep and those that can go. Also, it become cumbersome to scan through the list of stuff which -- for whatever reason -- I can't work on yet to find the stuff that I can. Snooze fixes all that. It allows you to tell Inbox to remove a message until a particular date/time, with some quick options like "tomorrow", "next week" and "someday". I also often snooze to location. I may check my email when I'm not at the office, just to get through some of the backlog, but I rarely want to type extensive answers on my phone, so I "Snooze to work".

By snoozing away everything that I can't work on right now, it becomes not only feasible but relatively easy to get to "inbox zero", meaning that my inbox is completely empty. Every morning I have a pile of bundles that I can plow through quickly (thank

Re:Still confused by Allo

[CimmerianX]

And in return, you let google read, index, and data mine all your email.
You gave up some privacy for a few minutes of convenience.
No thank you.

Re:Still confused by Allo

[Anonymous Coward]

He works for Google, so you'll need to take any of his gushing fanboyism with a ton of salt. His posts are an interesting study of the almost creepy level of cultish devotion that seems to permeate the company.

Re:Still confused by Allo

[swillden]

Drink more kool-aid.

Got nothing of substance to say, I see.

Re:Still confused by Allo

[swillden]

And in return, you let google read, index, and data mine all your email. You gave up some privacy for a few minutes of convenience. No thank you.

Well, that's the same with Gmail. I was presenting Inbox as a Gmail UI alternative. There are clearly other issues which may lead people to other decisions. Personally, I'll take the convenience (and did even before I started working for Google).

As a practical matter, what negative impact on your life would you expect from allowing Google to index your email? For me it's fewer ads for tampons and more ads for cameras and quadcopters, which works for me.

Re: Still confused by Allo

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Google is evil. Anyone smart and that cares about privacy uses Facebook.

Re:Still confused by Allo

[CimmerianX]

It crosses a line with me. Knowing personal details gained from 'reading/indexing' what are supposed to be private messages is just wrong. I know its in your EULA and anyone using your services has agreed to allow Google to do this. But I never will. Even if the data is for ads, its still a personal profile about very, very private details. I know Marketers drool at the mouth for information like this, but I will not give you that info. EVER!

Re:Still confused by Allo

[swillden]

So, no practical impact, just a principle. Okay.

Intercept Running Ads as Content

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we know how team Omidyar can run a news outlet without explicit advertisements: the stories themselves are often great big product placements.

Messages on iOS and macOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Encrypted end-to-end by default.

Re: Messages on iOS and macOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, you.can only communicate with other Apple customers.

Re:Telegram is missing.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's mentioned in this one - as the worst possible option. Notably it's not end-to-end by default.
http://gizmodo.com/the-best-and-worst-encrypted-messaging-apps-1782424449

Re:Telegram is missing.

[vux984]

Rather curious how the best app for end-to-end security is missing - namely Telegram.

Telegram has 2 modes. Secure ("secret conversations") and
Default (essentially insecure; because messages are stored on their server)

The default trades features for security, namely that of of synchronization between all client devices, without regard for whether they are on or off or anything else at the time the message sent. Its a feature i value, and its a reason i use telegram.

But it IS at odds with security; and its something I'd like to see addressed. Although it would be a substantial rework of the protocol, and it would take a lot more storage space on the store and forward server since each message would need to be stored separately for each receiving device I think.

There has been some other criticisms of how telegram handles secret conversations (which are properly end to end encrypted -- and lose out on the sync to all devices as a result) but I've never gotten specifics on what the criticism is exactly or whether or not it is valid.

signal source code does not matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing their source does not assure you of anything. You'd have to decompile the app you download from the store to know if it was bugged.

Re:signal source code does not matter

[vux984]

you are welcome to compile and install signal yourself; if you don't trust the app store download.

Re:signal source code does not matter

[wbr1]

Uh... dude you can compile your own APK if you so wish and sideload it. Most won't, but most people don't compile any of their own software.

Re:signal source code does not matter

[Striek]

You can also compile it from source yourself and verify the checksums. While you can't prove that nothing was changed from the given source code, you can prove that that same source code can produce an identical binary, and induce that nothing has been altered.

It's still good enough to eliminate the possibility of tampering, assuming someone is watching.

This was done, for example, with TrueCrypt.

Which one should you be using?

[Yvan256]

The one your friends and family use. What's the point of a secure messaging network if nobody you know uses it?

Re:Which one should you be using?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is /. where the practical question is thrown out the window as being unimportant! Such things are for mere mortals who aren't engaged in the important business of this pseudo-intellectual debate over obscure functionality that most, if not nearly everyone on this site, will likely never utilize or need as we are not nearly important enough to be spied upon for any reason whatsoever.

Re:Which one should you be using?

[heypete]

The one your friends and family use. What's the point of a secure messaging network if nobody you know uses it?

Users can install multiple messaging apps. I, for one, have several: Signal, WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, Skype, etc.

So far it works fine, and most of my friends and family use Signal.

Re:Which one should you be using?

[Anonymous Coward]

Friends? Family? What are those?? I don't need to choose an app to talk to myself! I can do that anywhere!! Because I know nobody!!

Re:Which one should you be using?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you run FOUR programs when you should be using ONLY ONE. Would you bother running four email programs if there was four different emails types?

Re:Which one should you be using?

[johanw]

I run two: a normal IMAP client, and an Exchange client for work email.

Re:Which one should you be using?

[Gussington]

The one your friends and family use. What's the point of a secure messaging network if nobody you know uses it?

My work uses Jabber, our outsourced developers use Hipchat, our other outsourced consultants use Slack, my kids use WhatsApp, and Snapchat, my wife uses Facebook, and SMS, My close friends use Wickr, my other friends are still on MSN/Skype. I have all these (except Facebook which I refuse to be a part of) and it's no big deal, I actually prefer that there's no crossover of worlds. This is the one thing Facebook/Google/Linkedin etc don't get. I have different relationships, and I like to keep them all separate. Stop trying to make one big love-in where everyone knows everyone else. The world doesn't work like that.

What about WIRE?

[grc]

Wire is a rather nice messaging App that has end to end encryption. They don't advertise, or hold encryption keys. See here: https://wire.com/privacy/

Re: What about WIRE?

[mrmaster]

I do love Wire and I don't know why they were not included.

End-to-end... you keep using that word

[Anonymous Coward]

You keep using that term, "end-to-end". . . I do not think that it means what you think it means.

Chatsecure

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Chatsecure?

Re:Chatsecure

[Anonymous Coward]

signal replaces chatsecure.

Re:Telegram is missing.

[vux984]

It raises the question why they bothered to mention Allo then though, as it also has no encryption on by default.

It's about the protocols, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

If you care about your privacy...

..then you have already stopped obsessing with "apps" and are primarily concerned with protocols. Once you have decided on, say, XMPP plus OpenPGP extensions, then you have plenty of competing apps to chose from.

And of course, it follows that whatever protocol you use, will be "service-agnostic." Since you're going to pick something which uses a secure protocol, you basically don't care about servers; they're all commodities. Install jabberd or whatever at your Linode. Seriously: whatever.

I don't know how WhatsApp or Allo are even seriously considered. What do they speak? When people talk about the app more than the protocol, that's a bad sign. (e.g. I use the web and it's irrelevant whether I use it with Chromium or Firefox. The more you care about my specific browser, the more I think you're trying to talk me into not-using-the-web.)

Re:It's about the protocols, stupid

[BlortHorc]

If you care about your privacy...

..then you have already stopped obsessing with "apps" and are primarily concerned with protocols. Once you have decided on, say, XMPP plus OpenPGP extensions, then you have plenty of competing apps to chose from.

And of course, it follows that whatever protocol you use, will be "service-agnostic." Since you're going to pick something which uses a secure protocol, you basically don't care about servers; they're all commodities. Install jabberd or whatever at your Linode. Seriously: whatever.

I don't know how WhatsApp or Allo are even seriously considered. What do they speak? When people talk about the app more than the protocol, that's a bad sign. (e.g. I use the web and it's irrelevant whether I use it with Chromium or Firefox. The more you care about my specific browser, the more I think you're trying to talk me into not-using-the-web.)

This gets modded as Insightful? Really?

You don't have to have read TFA, read TFS ffs. They all use the Signal protocol, what is relevant is precisely the servers and what meta data they store and what their privacy policy says they will disclose to 3rd parties.

Hence the fricking article.

Re:It's about the protocols, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the "resurgence" of Slashdot, this has bothered me the most. "This" being blatantly wrong posts getting to *and remaining at* +5 insightful. Even after a thoroughly debunking response, or several. Hell, nine times out of ten, the thoughtful responses do *not* get modded up.

Idiocracy in front of our own eyes. It does not matter what your argument is, just how loud and with how much conviction it is delivered. Fuck, I'm off to mow my lawn ;-)

Re:It's about the protocols, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

"They all use the Signal protocol, what is relevant is precisely the servers and what meta data they store and what their privacy policy says they will disclose to 3rd parties."

Using a secure protocol doesn't mean anything if all the authentication,verification, revocation and generation of keys used in the PKI scheme is hidden from the user.

Threema is missing

[Knuckles]

n/t

Whast the point?

[nitehawk214]

Whats the point of "secure" messaging in Whatsapp and Allo if the messages are not actually secure?

Re:Whast the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatsapp messages *are* secure. Their contents are encrypted and unreadable by anyone other than the intended recipient.

The thing that can potentially be gleaned from Whatsapp conversations is *who* you are talking to, not the *contents* of your conversation. It turns out that it's *hard* to defend against traffic analysis... you have to make tradeoffs that the average user isn't going to accept in order to stand a chance at it.

Re:Whast the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Luckily, our data analyst friends in Fort Meade mostly work with this metadata, so your physical safety is not compromised...

Rather curious that you can't read

[Anonymous Coward]

Try reading that summary again. Short summary it is not the best. It's worse than all the others.

Re:Rather curious that you can't read

[Anonymous Coward]

That is what TFA says but the linked data in TFA just says that the encryption is different not broken.

Re:Remember, ONLY apps can app apps!

[The-Ixian]

cows are for LUDDITES

Privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

... and if you are concerned about the privacy of your contacts, don't install an app that uploads your address book to the company. That is all.

Re:No App is "Secure"

[Anonymous Coward]

> Want a messaging app that is secure, get a peer-to-peer messaging app that does not depend on servers.

And:
(1) Was not compiled by anyone else
(2) Does not depend on libraries compiled by anyone else
(3) Does not run on an operating system compiled by anyone else
(4) Does not run on hardware built by anyone else
(5) Is completely bug-free all the way down to the hardware
(6) Does not depend on unique identifiers like telephone number
(7) Only uses onion routing to prevent 3rd parties from building a social-graph of your contacts
(8) Does not draw attention to itself by using onion routing
(9) Does not require so much network activity that it drains your battery prevents you from communicating
(A) Is easy enough to use that your non-technical contacts can actually use it
(B) etc

Every choice in life is a trade-off. There is no such thing as perfect. You must prioritize what matters most to you.

But more broadly, anything the increases the cost of non-targeted "drag-net" style surveillance benefits all of us, even those of us who don't actually use the app.

Wickr

[lazarus]

"We commend Wickr for its strong stance regarding user rights, transparency, and privacy"

Wickr

Re:Wickr

[ffkom]

But Wickr is commercial and requires central servers. Ring does not.

Re:Wickr

[markdavis]

>"We commend Wickr for its strong stance regarding user rights, transparency, and privacy [eff.org]"

And, yet, the product is still completely coded-source. You are downloading and running an unknown binary and have no idea what they or are not doing with your data. There could be backdoors in that code either by Wickr or by some three-letter government agency and nobody will ever know.

You really can't assure security/privacy of anything if you are using closed-source software. Period.

Re: Wickr

[lazarus]

I completely agree with you FWIW. Two points though:

1. The closed source on my mobile device could have back doors that I wouldn't know about. And frankly some open source code that is principally written by a large Corp (Google) is not particularly peer-reviewed by the FLOSS community and could be riddled (and often is) with vulnerabilities. Open source is not "the" answer - it also has to be accompanied by an open development community.

2. Some (but not all) of the closed-sourced concern about Wickr is mitigated through the combination of transparency ("we've been requested by a three letter agency to monitor your account") and your control over your data (ability to set default destruction times, removal of your own messages at any time, etc).

This particular time we live in is filled with compromises. I only point out another datapoint.

Re:Wickr

[93 Escort Wagon]

But Wickr is commercial and requires central servers. Ring does not.

If Slashdot has taught me anything, it is: Never, ever click on a URL ending in ".cx".

Re:Wickr

[Anonymous Coward]

Doth protest too much, we all know you browse co.cx every day..

Battle of the Secure Messaging Apps: Signal Triump

[Anonymous Coward]

Use Wickr. It's very secure.

I can't wait until

[Anonymous Coward]

All messaging apps are replaced by open standards, and you have your choice of client.

Re:I can't wait until

[dovf]

Check out https://matrix.org/ -- might just be what you're looking for, looks very promising so far...!

Re:No App is "Secure"

[drpimp]

Clearly the only "Safe" option is using telepathy.

Re:No App is "Secure"

[Anonymous Coward]

The Wickr instant messaging app allows users to exchange end-to-end encrypted and content-expiring messages, including photos, videos, and file attachments.The software is available for the iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems and is very secure.

OTR

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they not forget about OTR?

Open source, been around for a very long time, available for most OSs (even via apt-get under debian based Linux), supports strong encryption, authentication, perfect forward secrecy, contains no advertisements and depends on no closed servers.

Re:OTR

[Gr8Apes]

And best of all, the authentication of the key can be done out of band.

iMessage

[friedmud]

iMessage is also end-to-end encrypted... and already has a huge install base.

Re:iMessage

[Aqualung812]

iMessage has a few issues:

-Can't verify keys
-By default, will send as SMS if you have data connection issues
-Will send as SMS regardless of settings if the other person's iPhone is signed out from iMessage
-Only works on iOS devices

Re:iMessage

[angel'o'sphere]

iMessage only works on iOs/OS X and is not reliable it loses messages all the time (unless it falls back to SMS).

Re:iMessage

[friedmud]

All true.

Re:iMessage

[friedmud]

Reliability is pretty good... but you are right that it will fall back to SMS by default (you can turn that off).

Re:iMessage

[angel'o'sphere]

I switched SMS ON and switched internet usage off, as I have plenty of messages that never reached the recipient and plenty of messages that only reached one of my devices (via internet).

In my case you clearly can see what I have sent and what I have received does not match on the iPad, iPhone and Mac.

Re:iMessage

[friedmud]

Then you have something misconfigured on your devices. I successfully use iMessage all day long (everyone in my sphere other than my boss uses iDevices) across an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Macbook Pro and two Mac Pros... all of them are always in perfect sync with all messages showing on all devices instantly.

Take some time to work on the configuration on your devices. Make sure that they are all signed into the same iCloud account and set to be "Reached by iMessage" at all of your contactable addresses (phone number and email addresses) and are all set to "Start Conversations From" the same address (I use my phone number personally).

Also helps to have "Text Message Forwarding" turned on so you can text from your iPad and Macs.

Re:iMessage

[Yvan256]

I do NOT have cellphone service on my iPhone so you can put aside any SMS-related problems for my case. I also don't use iCloud so it can't be that either. Don't confuse Apple account with iCloud account.

I use iMessage on my iPhone and my Mac. Sometimes, the iPhone will keep annoying me about new messages even though I'm reading them on my Mac. Other times, the iPhone will receive days-old messages from multiple persons in a single burst. It also doesn't sort them in order either so my messaging threads for those people are all messed up.

Re:iMessage

[Anonymous Coward]

False

Re:iMessage

[friedmud]

Not using iCloud is your problem. They synchronize through iCloud. Get an iCloud account and put them both on it.

Re:iMessage

[angel'o'sphere]

I don't think there was anything wrong configured.

Which messages get missing on which device looked pretty random to me.

With no longer using iMessage on my iPad and Mac and on the other hand having set my iPhone to SMS all is fine anyway.

However you have interesting hints, did not know (or forgot already again) that there are so many options (where something can go wrong).

Re:iMessage

[Yvan256]

iMessages messing up because I don't use iCloud is Apple's problem.

Re:iMessage

[friedmud]

You can blame who you like... but that's the reason it's not working...

Re:iMessage

[Noah Haders]

iMessages messing up because I don't use iCloud is Apple's problem.

makes no sense. is it honda's fault that you want to drive the car without the wheels?

Open source? No.

[Anonymous Coward]

It varies by license, obviously, but if the binaries aren't distributed, nothing obligates them to share the live source code.

Re:No App is "Secure"

[Anonymous Coward]

> telepathy

Cool! Now, is that in the app store?

How do I download it.

THX

Re:No App is "Secure"

[viperidaenz]

C) Does not require you to remove your tinfoil hat to use it

oi manishs

[Anonymous Coward]

manishs you write like a cunt - this isn't your blog and your style fucks up the point of summaries and articles. please do fuck off or get a clue. fuck you manishs.

n.b. Signal is limited to 3 devices

[bill_mcgonigle]

I was all set to go whole-hog with the Signal Protocol, until I realized I could only use it on three of my devices. It's a hard-coded limit (cf. github) and there are no plans to change that, currently.

Re:n.b. Signal is limited to 3 devices

[vux984]

For me, i could get away with 3 devices (just) but the desktop version appears to be a chrome application.

I don't really know much about "chrome applications"

I don't really want chrome in the first place. I definitely don't want a messaging app running in a broser tab or window if i can avoid it. If it gets its own task bar icon, and its own notification settings and it works with chromium etc etc it might be ok...???

Re:n.b. Signal is limited to 3 devices

[jaklode]

It's an app. Chrom(e|ium) is just the framework (think about Chrome here like Qt for a Qt app). It has its own icon, it's own window. There are not really any notification settings, though, as those are part of the framework (look and place) - you can chose what and if notifications are displayed, though.

Absolutely NONE of them.

[Anonymous Coward]

This narrows down the list to WhatsApp, Signal, and Allo.

This story is USA government sponsored. This is misinformation. Do those chats get passed through a server? So encrypting from person A to server (then data exists on server) then from server to person B (C,D,E,etc) leaves everything on server open to be read/saved/copied. More than your chat is of course sent to the server. If the network identifiers were encrypted and the server couldn't read it, the server wouldn't know what to do with it either. What am I talking about? Your IP address.

To wit: the server reads the network stuff and the chat stuff and THE CHAT is only encrypted from MITM. Man-in-the-middle.

Ed Snowden told you. Do not call any of those three apps secure and pump it on front page.

Nobody cares if your teen daughter gave a blowjob to her classmate in gym at the time it happens, but store it and later what?

Yep, it's all like that now. Even new versions of Tails.
https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9266977&cid=52359483

Re:No App is "Secure"

[fph il quozientatore]

I am not sure if you are joking or not, but there really is a well-known IM library called like that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I have a slightly different take on these three

[93 Escort Wagon]

WhatsApp: You might have a chance of actually being able to communicate with someone you know - especially if you live in Brazil.

Allo: "The first thing to understand about Google's forthcoming Allo app..." - yeah, because Google Plus was such a hit.

Signal: The good news is, you can probably find all your Diaspora friends on this one.

Seriously... let's ignore all the ones that most people actually use, shall we?

Re:I have a slightly different take on these three

[Anonymous Coward]

> Seriously... let's ignore all the ones that most people actually use, shall we?

Which MitM-immune instant messaging client do people actually use these days? Smart money says that you don't have an example of an IM client that fits the bill... unless it's a libpurple client that's running OTR. And if *that* is your example, I can count on my dick the number of people I know that use OTR.

Re:I have a slightly different take on these three

[johanw]

If you look at the installed base, WhatsApp if the biggest. After that, we get Viber, Wechat and Line. Wechat is of course unsecure and mostly used in China or by Chinese-speaking people. So for western countries, if you order by user base Whatsapp is by far the nr 1.

SMS is falling FAR behind, even though even more people can use it, because it costs money in most countries and has far fewer functions.

Re:I have a slightly different take on these three

[jaklode]

WhatsApp: You might have a chance of actually being able to communicate with someone you know - especially if you live in Brazil.

Or Germany :/

Re:I have a slightly different take on these three

[Noah Haders]

imessage is encrypted end to end.

Re:I have a slightly different take on these three

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously... let's ignore all the ones that most people actually use, shall we?

Which of these encrypt end to end?

Re:No App is "Secure"

[angel'o'sphere]

You clearly missunderstood your parent.

Want a messaging app that is secure, get a peer-to-peer messaging app that does not depend on servers.(7) Only uses onion routing to prevent 3rd parties from building a social-graph of your contacts

Onion routing requires nodes, aka servers.

As we are talking about phones which get basically dynamic IP adresses all the time, it is impossible to have such a service without a central server infrastructure that knows who is online and how he is reachable.

Of course such servers could be hosted by the crowd.

CHANGE YOUR PC CLOCK TO WAY OFF

[Anonymous Coward]

None of the three are secure at all. The FBI/CIA use time logging as a default tracking failsafe mechanism.

To have private chat you will have to run a live cd of Tails on a cd or in a virtual machine from an .iso as a live cd.

The only good version is 1.4.1. It is what Ed Snowden used. Do not ask me how I know, especially on Slashdot.

Re:CHANGE YOUR PC CLOCK TO WAY OFF

[Anonymous Coward]

None of the three are secure at all. The FBI/CIA use time logging as a default tracking failsafe mechanism.

To have private chat you will have to run a live cd of Tails on a cd or in a virtual machine from an .iso as a live cd.

The only good version is 1.4.1. It is what Ed Snowden used. Do not ask me how I know, especially on Slashdot.

You can't spoof your time zone in Firefox as of version 45.0. You will definitely have to manually set your PC time or even VM time zone to wacky numbers. Just switch them back to synched if you ever need them to be. In general you never need them to be except perhaps emailing.

I'm certain people have clocks next to their PC's to watch the correct date and time. This simple tip totally fucks up government monitoring.

Nice post.

Re:CHANGE YOUR PC CLOCK TO WAY OFF

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD POINTS Mod this up so it gets scraped by Google. The public needs to know this.

Go Ed Go Ed Go Ed

Re:CHANGE YOUR PC CLOCK TO WAY OFF

[Anonymous Coward]

They almost got you. It takes 2 mod points to get scraped.

Centralized IMs

[MRZA]

I think it's stupid to talk about privacy and centralized services. Only federation can give use decent privacy level. Like XMPP. XMPP has e2e encryption (OMEMO, PGP, OTR). And serverless solutions like Tox. Although, it's still missing some important functionality. If you have a choice use decentralized services.

Re:Centralized IMs

[dovf]

Check out https://matrix.org/ -- federated, open source, open spec. it's still being actively developed, but from what I've seen so far it's looking really solid, and seems like a good development community, too... End-to-end encryption isn't yet finalized, but it's said to be coming soon...

Which one should you be using?

[thegarbz]

so which one should you be using?

The one that lets you contact people. So our choices are:

WhatsApp: Used my hundreds of millions of people around the world. A de facto standard in many countries
Allo: Forthcoming? As in not here yet?
Signal: ... what? Who are you people?

Then go for "Ring"...

[ffkom]

... which is strictly distributed and available as open source, see Ring official site or Ring on F-Droid. Unlike Signal, you can compile your own working Ring App from the sources.

Re:Then go for "Ring"...

[johanw]

If you can't compile Signal yourself that's only due to lack of knowledge on your part. I compile my own Signal version (with some slight changes) with each new release. All the required tools can be downloaded for free.

And there is threema ...

[angel'o'sphere]

https://threema.ch/en

Servers in Switzerland, Company has "bank status", open API, everything encrypted, anonymous ID.

Re:And there is threema ...

[natslovR]

was wondering why that wasn't included. Thought the user-authentication process would be considered a positive.

Re:And there is threema ...

[johanw]

It's not free so that reduces usage a lot.

Re:And there is threema ...

[angel'o'sphere]

The app, costs like $5 or something, and then messaging is free. That is about the cost of a beer or two (depending on your country and beer sizes).

Can't get it how "cheap" people are in our times.

Re:And there is threema ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Same as with pirating TV shows etc.

THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE MONEY.

The problem is paying.

How do I transfer the $5 (equivalent) from my wallet to the seller?

I don't have a credit card. Not allowed to, by law. And even if I did, how would I pay *anonymously*?

Re:Remember, ONLY apps can app apps!

[zlives]

only if they are sacred cows, otherwise steak is for dinner

Re: Telegram is missing.

[Anonymous Coward]

The article has omitted to mention that the criteria used was to either have encryption by default or be google.

Walk into a McDonalds and say that to a customer

[Anonymous Coward]

Walk into a McDonalds or a gas station or grocery store and say that to a customer and watch the blank look on their face.

Then realize those people and people like them decide what is popular.

You may be right on technical terms and maybe even philosophy.

Which will have to be your consolation prize for being wrong. Because human behavior is a social phenomenon most of the time, and a thinking behavior only at the brink of consequences.

Wire is missing!

[rarruda]

Wire has complete e2e--encryption and a full set of features missing in the other apps. (As well as all encryption bits being open source).

Simple comparison chart is here: https://wire.com/privacy/

Signal is great

[JThundley]

Signal is great! Easy to use, secure, open source. What's not to love? The iPhone version sucks more than the Android version and there really isn't a desktop version yet. I really want a way to read and respond to Signal messages on my big keyboard and monitor.

And yes I know about the Chrome extension, I don't use close-sourced browsers.

Re:Signal is great

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:Signal is great

[heypete]

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.

Re:Signal is great

[virtig01]

And yes I know about the Chrome extension, I don't use close-sourced browsers.

What about Chromium then?

Re:Signal is great

[JThundley]

Does it have profile synchronization these days? Last I heard it doesn't.

Re:Signal is great

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with signal is its use of google services. Even if you compile the app by yourself (since the developers don't allow distributing binaries elsewhere), you need google apps on your phone. Therefore it's not really an option if you want to eliminate (as much as possible anyway) the use of proprietary software on the phone.

Re:Signal is great

[Anonymous Coward]

Signal is great! Easy to use, secure, open source. What's not to love?

The laundry list of permissions. To wit:

{Device & app history}
read sensitive log data
{Identity}
read your own contact card
modify your own contact card
find accounts on the device
{Calendar}
add or modify calendar events and send email to guests without owners' knowledge
read calendar events plus confidential information
{Contacts}
read your contacts
modify your contacts
find accounts on the device
{Location}
approximate location (network-based)
precise location (GPS and network-based)
{SMS}
receive text messages (SMS)
receive text messages (MMS)
read your text messages (SMS or MMS)
send SMS messages
edit your text messages (SMS or MMS)
{Phone}
read phone status and identity
read call log
modify phone state
reroute outgoing calls
directly call phone numbers
directly call any phone numbers
write call log
{Photos/Media/Files}
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
read the contents of your USB storage
{Storage}
modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
read the contents of your USB storage
{Camera}
take pictures and videos
{Microphone}
record audio
{Wi-Fi connection information}
view Wi-Fi connections
{Device ID & call information}
read phone status and identity
{Other}
send WAP-PUSH-received broadcast
receive data from Internet
run at startup
control vibration
view network connections
change network connectivity
prevent device from sleeping
full network access
read sync settings
toggle sync on and off
create accounts and set passwords
use accounts on the device
connect and disconnect from Wi-Fi
set wallpaper
change your audio settings
pair with Bluetooth devices
send sticky broadcast
disable your screen lock

Re:No App is "Secure"

[unrtst]

Onion routing requires nodes, aka servers.

As we are talking about phones which get basically dynamic IP adresses all the time, it is impossible to have such a service without a central server infrastructure that knows who is online and how he is reachable.

That isn't true. Anytime you write "impossible", it should make you think twice.
Here's an example (I haven't used this, but I know this sort of thing is very feasible via Tor): https://github.com/prof7bit/To...

Re:No App is "Secure"

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey dummy!
Did you notice how some of those other points were also contradictory? No? Well read it again.

There is a larger point to that post which went completely over your head. Since reading it twice probably won't make you any smarter, I'll spell it out: The word "secure" means different things to different people and you can not have all of them simultaneously.

What about the privacy built Secure Messaging Apps

[Anonymous Coward]

This story seems bias to only compare 3 Secure Messaging Apps when Wikipedia has 24 Secure Messaging applications: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_instant_messaging_clients#Secure_messengers

My interpretation of privacy is privacy of your message and privacy of who you are talking to (i.e. The "messaging server" does not know every person you talk to and are connected to).
Hence it needs to be a decentralised messaging app.

That is why I use TOX which is available at: https://tox.chat/

Vector.IM built on Matrix triumphs over Signal etc

[Anonymous Coward]

For a start Matrix.org (Vector.im is a client), is decentralised, federated and backwards (bridged) to XMPP & IRC.

Matrix doesn't depend on phone numbers (however can use them as a 3rd party ID). So it's not vulnerable to SS7 attacks, phone number porting, the same social engineering, etc. by default.

It works on AOSP (Android Open Source) based ROMs! Matrix/Vector doesn't depend on Google Play Store and you can run it without Google Apps (which collect lots of data) installed. GApps are a huge problem, because you can't even INSTALL it on something like CyanogenMod or CopperheadOS without destroying the phone's security model (requires a very nasty kernel hack and means no secure, verified boot). Even the open source MicroG replacement option requires signature spoofing, which means it's a complete non-starter.

Signal, even if open source, won't talk to other Signal servers. It won't federate, so you're either locked into Signal, or in a network all by yourself (which isn't very useful if you need to communicate).

If you care about security, CopperheadOS is by far and away the most advanced Android distribution and if you can't run Signal on it, then better look for something else (for me, that's Vector or Conversations).

who is sending a message to whom

[manu0601]

[WhatsApp] can see who is sending a message to whom and when

Of course they do. How could they manage replies otherwise?

Re:who is sending a message to whom

[Striek]

They could have messages sent directly between peers and not need to manage the replies at all. It's the relieance on a central server that is one of their biggest privacy weaknesses, the article is arguing.

Re:Telegram is missing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Too lazy to even RTFS. You must be a lib.

LineApp?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about LineApp with "letter sealing" enabled. Seeing as the majority of the Asian world uses it, it would be nice to know how it stacks up against the others.

Already exists!

[Kludge]

XMPP is an open standard supported by dozens of messaging applications on every platform in existence. I use "Conversations" which supports end-to-end encryption.

Who posted this article? It is truly uninformed.

Re:No App is "Secure"

[arglebargle_xiv]

Every choice in life is a trade-off. There is no such thing as perfect. You must prioritize what matters most to you.

A confounding factor in my case is that every clique I communicate with seems to have their own pet IM app, to the extent that I've got an entire subfolder in my phone dedicated to all the IM apps I need to run to communicate with them all. All taking up memory and resources when they poke around for new messages. What I want most is some sort of Trillian Mobile that unifies everything into one single app, not one app per user or group.

Also, is it just me or is Wickr on Android the least reliable IM app ever written, and that's including using carrier mackerel across the sahara? It loses messages, decides after an hour of sitting on them that they're now unsent, notifies for message arrivals but doesn't display them, suddenly sends out queues of weeks-old messages, etc etc. How can anyone write an app that bad?

Bubble view article

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you care about your privacy, you would want your messaging client to be end-to-end encrypted. This narrows down the list to WhatsApp, Signal, and Allo."

Like the previous article on google, this is an extremely narrow vision. As if those 3 are the only answer to this.

Go for "Ring"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll second that. Ring is based on DHT and its working nicely on Linux.

Re:Telegram is missing.

[johanw]

It is mentioned, and it is certainly not the best. But there are missing messengers: from the large messengers, Viber and Line recently switched to e2e encryption. How well it is implemented remains open for debate of course.

Re:No App is "Secure"

[Wuhao]

Clearly the only "Safe" option is using telepathy.

And talk to those fucking mind-readers?

2 factor authentication

[codeButcher]

As far as I can tell, these apps all require a user to have a telephone number (Subscriber Identity Module). This is then used to ensure a securely authenticated connection.

Good in theory.

However in practice, I get a new number every few years (by choice even if I could keep my old number when signing a new contract). After 5 years on my current number, I still get accounts, calls, and other material (via SMS or MMS) intended for the previous owner of the number.

Also, in my country, some banks use the same channel for online banking security, and as a consequence "SIM cloning" is a well-known scam employed to empty out accounts.

While it may be harder or less worthwhile to crack the SIM part of the authentication protocol, I am by no means convinced that it is foolproof.

(Conceding that YMMV, I have a fairly cheap (+-20 USD equivalent per month) cellphone contract that includes X minutes and Y SMSes a month, which carry over, and which I have never used up in a month. So I'm quite happy to SMS people or even call them back. Friends often complain that I'm not on $CHAT_APP, but I do have an e-mail address, and you can get a free e-mail clients for every conceivable platform without requiring your telephone number (or address book!) - which is better than these chat apps do. You also use the exact same data channel to send and receive. I don't always have my data connection activated, but when I do, I get your message the same, whether it is a chat or and e-mail. Plus, if you require encryption, that can also be added on to e-mail in various ways without the need for a central server to handle it, it could be done peer to peer.
So I really don't get this chat app craze. Is it because it gives the power to grab someone's attention regardless of what he was doing, to now first answer your inane chatter? That's exactly why I disable the data except for certain times. If you want to save money on calls and SMSes, use good old ubiquitous, standardized and familiar e-mail, if you want to get hold of me quickly, just call or SMS as you did 5 years ago - the slight charge should serve as a (low) threshold just to ensure this is really that urgent, and that's exactly the point for me).

Re:No App is "Secure"

[AmiMoJo]

In this case we know something about how governments and other spies operate. I'm sure if the NSA or GCHQ really wants you data they will get it by some foul means, but for avoiding bulk surveillance and preventing your private communications entering the hands of law enforcement, local government, ISPs, consumer rights groups (see proposed UK Snoopers' Charter) etc. keeping your data off a third party server works really well.

In the UK the government is likely to require ISPs to log your traffic. It is therefore important to obfuscate it. Encryption, of course, but pipe it all down a VPN so that most metadata can't be observed either, and it is difficult to tell apart from other traffic. TOR goes even further with this obfuscation. Avoid having the data stored anywhere, even in encrypted form, because it will be vulnerable to demands by government agencies and you may be forced to decrypt it or go to jail.

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

The worlds most used messaging apps are not in the comparison!

Skype.
Line.

Both of these are at least of the same magnitude as whatsapp in number of users, and 10x-1000x larger than the other two in the comparison. Line has end-to-end encryption too. Would have loved to learn more about its metadata storage / routing policies.

And then there is the ToR messenger for the really privacy concscious...

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Skype? Secure?! Oh dear.... NO!!!
For a start, it uses centralised key exchange.
It reads all your messages (including scraping links you mention).
It uses closed-source mystery binary blobs and on Linux only works by kernel modules.
It's probably sitting there leaving your microphone on in the background given their track record!
It's now owned by Microsoft that mine all the data on your PC and uploads interesting metadata to Microsoft (who have a history of NSA cooperation too BTW).

No no no no no. You'd be more private standing with a megaphone in a crowded theatre.

p.s. You'd better lookup who Edward Snowden is.

Re:No App is "Secure"

[angel'o'sphere]

Of course it is true:

TorChat is a peer to peer instant messenger with a completely decentralized design, built on top of Tor's location hidden services,

You need a Tor Service to find your peer. How else would you find a peer?

Reading the wiki helps: https://github.com/prof7bit/To...

On the other hand, we talked about Phones, where IP adresses change constantly (actually they use a different protocol for addressing), Tor is for "PCs" only.

the article is not even wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

how can you use word secure to describe something, that runs on a cellphone?!!

repeat after me: a system, where there exists at least 1 component that you do not have control over, can never be secured. In this case, baseband processor, that is capable of DMA. Fuck cellphones.

I like telegram

[ilsaloving]

Telegram is a good compromise for all my needs.

Not everything needs to be encrypted. If the gov't finds out that I told my friend that my kitty did the cutest thing with a tissue, who cares? If I need to give someone a password to an account I set up for them on a server, then I have the option to encrypt. It would be nice if Telegram switched to using Signal's protocol for encrypted communications, cause Signal appears to be the benchmark that all other protocols are compared to, and I know there have been issues expressed with Telegram's encryption protocol.

Other features that are important: Broad spectrum platform support. That means Windows, OSX, iOS, Android, Linux. That's ultimately what killed BBM. You *had* to have a Blackberry to use it. Once Blackberry started dying, everyone abandoned BBM as well. By the time Blackberry saw the light, it was too little, too late. IMO, Whats App went from being a childrens toy, to a seriously useful tool, the second they added desktop support.

Other critical feature: Sync history between clients. I have multiple desktops, a tablet, and a phone. The idea of not being able to switch from one to another and still continue my conversation is flat out idiotic in todays connected age. I prefer to type on an actual keyboard when I can, so if I'm in front of a desktop, I use the desktop to message with. But it's not unusual that I then have to go somewhere, but I don't want to abandon the conversation, so I switch to a mobile device. I *expect* my history to follow me so that I can continue where I left off.

Finally, it *has* to be easy. I would have loved to see XMPP become the defacto messaging protocol, cause it's just so powerful. But setting up an XMPP client is a PITA. Sure, *I* could set it up just fine, because I have the skill to do so. The average person doesn't, which guarantees that the overwhelming majority of people won't use it, which defeats the whole purpose of having a universal messaging protocol.

Who needs privacy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Privacy is overrated. Just be careful not to provide in any way your birthdate, address and phone number (and obviously the more private information like SSN, etc) and you are good.

Bullshit

[allo]

Whatsapp and Signal can probably (whatsapp is no open source) see the same amount of data. Whatsapp is honest and tells the user, what they possibly can see, signal doesn't do this that upfront.

Nothing against some actually secure apps (and one point you should not neglect is a trustworthy vendor, which doesn't push malicious updates to an app, which is secure at the moment), but check your facts. I think there was one messanger (app, programs there are some), which wanted to get rid of the metadata by using tor. I guess this sucks quite a bit of battery, though.

Re:Telegram is missing.

[Anonymous Coward]

At least the servers aren't in the USA. XD

Re:Telegram is missing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most the unapproved messages (pending) on TFA are about that. "According to https://telegram.org, all messages are stored encrypted on the servers. Where is the proof that the messages are stored unencrypted?" "Your slam on Telegram is pretty much just reposted FUD based on a personal beef between Tptacek, Moxie and the Telegram dude." "Avoid Telegram? Are you mad? Oh I see. The app wasn’t made in the US." "Gizmodo is just joining the ranks of other protectionist; bashing without the real arguments, just because it was not made and owned by somebody from the silicon valley."

Re:Telegram is missing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true.... the servers are encrypted...

Inbox

[Keybounce]

Would you please explain how to set this up?

I am one of those people who are swamped/flooded with stuff in my inbox. The 5 tabs was a good start, but it's hopelessly problematic for me -- not only does Google mis-catagorize stuff, but the classifications (social, mailing list+forums, promotions, personal notifications) doesn't match "important, scan, junk" for me.

And, something to let me categorize emails as a GTD-style sectioned to-do list? PLEASE, tell me how.

Re:Inbox

[swillden]

There's not a lot you can do with the automatic categorization. You should make a point of always moving any mis-categorized e-mail, because that's how the system learns, but it'll never be perfect. For Inbox to work as well for you as it does for me, you have to be able to define good filters, based on simple logical rules, not rely on the automatic categorization. In my case, the vast bulk of my email comes from various mailing lists and automated systems, so it's easy for me to define rules that sort mail based on sender or mailing list. I also use some rules based on content, for example any e-mail that mentions me by name (well, by username, which is my "name" at work) gets the "Me" label added to it.

So the real key is the filters and the labels that divide the email up into related sets that have a common context and related urgency level. Then you make those labels into bundles, with appropriate delay settings.

Re:No App is "Secure"

[Anonymous Coward]

NO, it is not, because you cannot control message addressing. Ditto. - djb

WhatsApp definition of privacy?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first and only time I tried WhatsApp (on iOS), it requested access to my Contacts, which I denied it. Investigation of the situation revealed that the app uploads the entire contacts list. Poor Android users can't even download the app without consenting to provide access. I refuse to use any app that needs access to my Contacts. (I operate my own email, caldav and carddav servers.)