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| Security people recommend Signal a lot (e.g. https://medium.com/@thegrugq/signal-intelligence-free-for-al..., Snowden uses it and repeatedly recommended it: https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/661313394906161152, ...). Personally, I use it all the time and it's nice. Most of the initial problems have been sorted out, so I encourage anyone who's had trouble with it before to try it out again. It has text (one-on-one and groups) and voice calls. Things that could use improvement: group management, switching to a new device. It doesn't have some of the features some people like (stickers and whatnot), but personally I don't care much about those. Video calls would also be nice. |
| That article recommends Tor for browsing without mentioning the dangers involved. Malicious exit nodes are not hypothetical. It's easy to make mistakes with Tor, so I'd be wary of a general recommendation to use it. People who know more about this than me seem to agree: https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/797608924606173184 edit: I'm also unsure about the warning against fingerprint authentication. I use Touch ID with a long passcode and consider that the best trade-off. It prevents everyday attempts to get into the phone and offline cracking. The passcode is required after a longer time of inactivity. If you're paranoid you can touch your pinky against it five times in predictable situations (border controls etc). It's not perfect, but I think it makes the best tradeoff between convenience and security for most "normal" people. |
| agreed. tor exit nodes are a last resort. try to stay within tor network or just rely on ssl and assume adversaries know the site but not the content you access. |
| The most secure app is Biocoded: https://biocoded.com/home. The reason we claim it is the most secure is: - Encrypted local on-device storage. We have an always-on mechanism and never store the entire local storage decryption key on the device. It's half on the device and half on the server. In case of lost or stolen device, all data is still safe. In fact you can effectively "wipe" your biocoded app data even if the device is offline by deleting the server part of the decryption key. - We allow private servers (not for free). - Double ratchet algorithm for communication. |
| This is a vague question: it depends entirely on the protocol you're about to use. I'll try to give a few answers anyway. First of all, if you want total encryption, you'll need to make sure your connection is encrypted and secured as well (meaning following you back is not trivial), so the whole messaging should go through Tor[1]. There are plugin solutions for bitlbee[2], for Pidgin[3], and many other clients supporting OTR and similar encryptions. If you want all-in-one solutions, you probably should look at Tox[4], which is a protocol, not just an app, built to be encrypted by default. It's complicated and nasty to use and set up, but it's pretty secure. Other ideas might be drawn from the prism-break Communications list[5], listing apps like Chatsecure[6] or Xabber[7], both encryption-capable jabber apps. [1]: https://www.torproject.org/ [2]: https://wiki.bitlbee.org/bitlbee-otr [3]: https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/ThirdPartyPlugins#Securitya... [4]: https://tox.chat/ [5]: https://prism-break.org/en/protocols/ [6]: https://chatsecure.org/ [7]: https://www.xabber.com/ |
| I am under the impression iMessage is pretty secure and I use it extensively as most of my friends and colleagues have iPhones. Refer to http://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf which specifies that RSA 1280-bit keypairs are used, and the private key is held on the device. So in terms of transit - the protocol should be secure. The only remaining option would be to question whether iOS is secure/insecure. Apple claims: "Apple does not log messages or attachments, and their contents are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can access them. Apple cannot decrypt the data." |
| > I am under the impression iMessage is pretty secure Why's that? (I'm asking seriously, because I don't understand how people get this impression.) iMessage has some very fundamental design flaws that led to this attack:https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2016/03/21/attack-o... The attack is not super-spectacular, but the more worrying thing is that the design is not sound. They use an ad-hoc crypto construction that fails to follow usual best practices. And they haven't really fixed it, they just put some duct tape over it to avoid the attack. |
| As an alternative to Signal, I would also recommend Threema. Mobile only, paid, end-to-end encrypted with in-person verification. Team and infrastructure is based in Switzerland |
| I recommend Threema as well. Been using it for a couple of years. Accounts not tied to phone number, available on IOS, Android and Windows Phone, perfectly working group chats. |
There are, however, some upcoming developments which will change the situation in the next couple of months:
1) The main matrix.org client, Riot (https://riot.im) has end-to-end encryption now in beta. This will offer Signal-strength encryption, but in a decentralized, e-mail-like system with federated servers. This will create an ecosystem where people are no longer dependent on the goodwill (and solvency) of a single entity to use a good, encrypted messaging app.
2) Briar (https://briarproject.org) is a new (Android-only) app, designed for people with an especially high need for privacy. It works without central servers (through Tor hidden services, but hides the complexity of that), even works when the internet is down (e.g. when mobile networks are shut down during a protest) via Bluetooth and direct Wi-Fi connections, and it offers extra features, like a panic button that deletes all your data. It's in beta at the moment, with a planned release early next year.
TL;DR: Use Signal or Wire for now, but be ready to switch to a better system when available.