Hi, I wanna know what is the most secure and best messaging app/platform… Need an app that is crossplatform and has a very good numbers of features and security. (And it has to be FLOSS) I thought about XMPP clients, Signal, Session, IRC clients… Propose and explain me your choice
I’m intrigued by Threema.
But I have enough trouble getting people to use Telegram and Signal.
In the end, don’t let perfection be the enemy of better than what you have.
For example I use WhatsApp for like 80% of my communication because 80% of them are non-nerds that are barely moving from rawdogging SMS to an encrypted platform. I’d rather use WhatsApp than SMS.
I don’t have any meta accounts and my WhatsApp number is different than my cell number and is registered internationally in a privacy focused country. So to Meta, I’m protected by those rules and any invasion of my data by government forces would need an excuse big enough for international cooperation. Not just the local PD of a podunk town.
I’ve found that SimpleX is one the best option, it use the Signal protocol + more and has really robust anonymity (in fact it’s Signal but without inconvenients) Threema is a company, you shouldn’t use it
It’s a company that’s model is one I support. If you’re not paying for the service, you are the product. Eventually the free-ness of other solutions will run out. There’s only so much VC money and grant money that doesn’t have alterior motives.
Paying a company to provide a service, which does cost real money to operate, makes me more happy if they abide by their rules.
But it’s a snowball type issue. I’m not going to use Threema if nobody else I need to talk to doesn’t use it. And they aren’t going to use it if nobody else does. WhatsApp has critical mass across the world except USA because iDiots don’t understand. Signal and Telegram have mostly negative awareness due to copaganda telling the general populace that encryption is bad and only shady people use encryption to hide criminal activity. Everything else, (excluding China and their whole different ecosystem) is really just nerd talk between nerds.
You’re right, but I would prefer to use something that isn’t relaying on any type of company, my go-to is SimpleX, fully decentralized and you can run your own server. Just great I think
Any message application that requires that you first sign in on a phone is garbage.
It’s basically just Signal if you want ease of use + good security. Not totally 100% since it is funded almost exclusively by the US govt, and I can’t be sure if the encryption is not backdoored, but it’s the best bet we got. IRC: not secure, XMPP / Matrix maybe ok but hard to use for most, Telegram wouldn’t really trust though in theory has e2e, Whatsapp and Google world stuff even less faith. Honestly none of it is super great, but Signal has the best balance imo. There’s also some crypto based messaging stuff that’s used on darknets but that’s the clunkiest
I think the only fully guaranteed method is having a pre shared one time pad encryption key between two parties & then send the encrypted text however you want (ex post on a far corner of a mostly dead online forum or Reddit). That doesn’t have any fancy algos that may be bugged, or private/public key stuff
I think we can be pretty damn sure that the encryption is not backdoored since the Signal Protocol is the gold standard in encryption nowadays and thousands if not more highly skilled cryptographers without tied to the US govt looked at it thoroughly. Also Snowden calls Signal the best messenger on the grounds on him using it daily and still being alive so that’s also a pretty good sign.
Also, do you have a source about them being mainly funded by the US govt? In their blog they talked about mainly being funded by small donors and a few initial loans from people who care about privacy.
Ok, my bad, it’s not mostly funded now (though funding isn’t totally clear for all of its history) but we do know it was handed 3m near the start by Open Technology Fund which an arm of the US Agency for Global Media which is the US govt, and at best has the mission of pushing us news ideology globally. Ex they did Radio Free Asia after tianamen square, and guess what, that was conceptualized by none other than senator Joe Biden
Yeah the encryption is probably okay, and I use it daily, but these backdoors are often hella sneaky and we know that the US govt loves doing shit like that if they can
