Best messaging services to protect your conversations from spies

mylesillidge

mylesillidge

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WhatsApp vs Telegram — best app to prevent governments and criminals spying on messages

In the following article, Quinnipiac University cybersecurity and computer science assistant professor Robin Chataut explains how end-to-end encryption works, how different messaging apps implement it, and why it is essential but not a silver bullet.

While he does mention that it isn’t completely foolproof, a recent risk that has come to light is governments demanding push notification data from Google and Apple.
 
You are not protected from Governments. They have access to all conversations when needed on any platform. Any platform preventing governments access, will be blocked and banned on the Internet. No device will be able to use it.
 
Google RCS offers the same end to end encryption anyway.
 
Oh lord...more idiots that don't know the difference between privacy and security.

Apple’s iMessage integrates end-to-end encryption for messages exchanged between iMessage users, safeguarding them from external access.
Click to expand...
Apple circumvent E2E with on device scanning BEFORE its encrypted or after its decrypted. They tried that with CSAM and now moved to "Communication Safety" Of course they lock you into a close ecosystem so they know everything about you...there goes your privacy.

WhatsApp stands out for its robust privacy features,
Click to expand...
Biggest BS ever. WhatsApp is the absolute worst when it comes to privacy. Privacy starts at first contact. You need a cellno to register...there goes your privacy out the door without posting a single thing with your fancy pancy E2E.

Add to that your contact list is uploaded to their servers, they not only know all your idiot friends, drawing nice relationship maps, your identity is now crowd verified by your idiot friends. Cross referenced it with facebook and your privacy is royalty fcked...but you enjoy end to end encryption.

Telegram offers a nuanced approach to privacy. While it provides strong encryption, its standard chats do not use end-to-end encryption.
Click to expand...
Once again...E2E got nothing to do with privacy

Only people with high sensitive data like whistleblowers should care about E2E AND privacy. The rest should only care about privacy. When an email, cellno or any form of identity is needed on registration, there is no privacy by default. Identity markers creates actionable metadata. And metadata cannot be encrypted. This is what big tech wants...metadata. It does not matter what you say, if they don't know who say it...and to whom it was said, it is useless to them. It doesn't even matter if the service uses a centralized server and/or no E2E...without metadata every other data harvested (without identity leaks) is meaningless.

Session is better for privacy that all mentioned, but it still uses an identity marker...the session id. Any persistent id can be tracked, traced, observed and studied, and with time ends up at a location/person.

SimpleX is the best app for privacy as it does not use any user id's. That's the type of app a whistleblower should use
 
JustAsk said:
Oh lord...more idiots that don't know the difference between privacy and security.


Apple circumvent E2E with on device scanning BEFORE its encrypted or after its decrypted. They tried that with CSAM and now moved to "Communication Safety" Of course they lock you into a close ecosystem so they know everything about you...there goes your privacy.


Biggest BS ever. WhatsApp is the absolute worst when it comes to privacy. Privacy starts at first contact. You need a cellno to register...there goes your privacy out the door without posting a single thing with your fancy pancy E2E.

Add to that your contact list is uploaded to their servers, they not only know all your idiot friends, drawing nice relationship maps, your identity is now crowd verified by your idiot friends. Cross referenced it with facebook and your privacy is royalty fcked...but you enjoy end to end encryption.


Once again...E2E got nothing to do with privacy

Only people with high sensitive data like whistleblowers should care about E2E AND privacy. The rest should only care about privacy. When an email, cellno or any form of identity is needed on registration, there is no privacy by default. Identity markers creates actionable metadata. And metadata cannot be encrypted. This is what big tech wants...metadata. It does not matter what you say, if they don't know who say it...and to whom it was said, it is useless to them. It doesn't even matter if the service uses a centralized server and/or no E2E...without metadata every other data harvested (without identity leaks) is meaningless.

Session is better for privacy that all mentioned, but it still uses an identity marker...the session id. Any persistent id can be tracked, traced, observed and studied, and with time ends up at a location/person.

SimpleX is the best app for privacy as it does not use any user id's. That's the type of app a whistleblower should use
Click to expand...
Care about E2E if dealing with sensitive things like credit card info etc.

WhatsApp/imessage the main issue is that the clients are also closed source, and whatsapp/FB got caught forwarding messages via the client.

Telegrams has an open source client, and it seems their E2E is encrypted, just not sure if algorithm is actually secure, but the default is only encrypted to server and then reencrypted.

Signal would be the main app people dealing with privacy / security should be looking at, phone number is fine, that's a public address.

Personally use telegram as prefer the client on desktop, up until a bit ago, whatsapp required client to be connected if using the desktop client, which was annoying. Telegram also has some nice bot for groups, and seems to have some features that whatsapp just takes ages to get to.
 
JustAsk said:
Oh lord...more idiots that don't know the difference between privacy and security.


Apple circumvent E2E with on device scanning BEFORE its encrypted or after its decrypted. They tried that with CSAM and now moved to "Communication Safety" Of course they lock you into a close ecosystem so they know everything about you...there goes your privacy.


Biggest BS ever. WhatsApp is the absolute worst when it comes to privacy. Privacy starts at first contact. You need a cellno to register...there goes your privacy out the door without posting a single thing with your fancy pancy E2E.

Add to that your contact list is uploaded to their servers, they not only know all your idiot friends, drawing nice relationship maps, your identity is now crowd verified by your idiot friends. Cross referenced it with facebook and your privacy is royalty fcked...but you enjoy end to end encryption.


Once again...E2E got nothing to do with privacy

Only people with high sensitive data like whistleblowers should care about E2E AND privacy. The rest should only care about privacy. When an email, cellno or any form of identity is needed on registration, there is no privacy by default. Identity markers creates actionable metadata. And metadata cannot be encrypted. This is what big tech wants...metadata. It does not matter what you say, if they don't know who say it...and to whom it was said, it is useless to them. It doesn't even matter if the service uses a centralized server and/or no E2E...without metadata every other data harvested (without identity leaks) is meaningless.

Session is better for privacy that all mentioned, but it still uses an identity marker...the session id. Any persistent id can be tracked, traced, observed and studied, and with time ends up at a location/person.

SimpleX is the best app for privacy as it does not use any user id's. That's the type of app a whistleblower should use
Click to expand...

Can't fault you here with anything. Pretty spot on!

Johnatan56 said:
Care about E2E if dealing with sensitive things like credit card info etc.

WhatsApp/imessage the main issue is that the clients are also closed source, and whatsapp/FB got caught forwarding messages via the client.

Telegrams has an open source client, and it seems their E2E is encrypted, just not sure if algorithm is actually secure, but the default is only encrypted to server and then reencrypted.

Signal would be the main app people dealing with privacy / security should be looking at, phone number is fine, that's a public address.

Personally use telegram as prefer the client on desktop, up until a bit ago, whatsapp required client to be connected if using the desktop client, which was annoying. Telegram also has some nice bot for groups, and seems to have some features that whatsapp just takes ages to get to.
Click to expand...

Correct!
 
Johnatan56 said:
Care about E2E if dealing with sensitive things like credit card info etc.
Click to expand...
We talking about chat/messaging here. If you sharing CC details via those channels, you got bigger issues
Johnatan56 said:
WhatsApp/imessage the main issue is that the clients are also closed source, and whatsapp/FB got caught forwarding messages via the client.
Click to expand...
already explain their threats

Johnatan56 said:
Signal would be the main app people dealing with privacy / security should be looking at, phone number is fine, that's a public address.
Click to expand...
Whether your cellno is public is irrelevant, its not about keeping it a secret. Its about NOT joining it to a user on Signal...not making yourself known to a 3rd party or interloper.
 
rvZA said:
You are not protected from Governments. They have access to all conversations when needed on any platform. Any platform preventing governments access, will be blocked and banned on the Internet. No device will be able to use it.
Click to expand...

In some countries yes that platform can be blocked by the government however it is possible to bypass with a VPN. This has been proven in China, Iran and Russia.

While E2E does offer a significant barrier of protection, nothing is infallible and governments can, in some cases, bypass encryption through other means, such as exploiting device vulnerabilities, legal compulsion for individuals to unlock devices, or using metadata analysis to gather information.
 
rvZA said:
You are not protected from Governments. They have access to all conversations when needed on any platform. Any platform preventing governments access, will be blocked and banned on the Internet. No device will be able to use it.
Click to expand...
That's why the western governments don't like tiktok they can't use it to spy on users.
 
It also comes down to the metadata as that is an important part of the ecosystem as well. Is that protected, on sold, etc. It was one of the reasons why I left WhatsApp specifically. Signal should also be brought into the comparison though as a mainstream messenger service.
 
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