Secure Chat
An Abstract
When people say “Why do I need digital privacy? I have nothing to hide” I ask them,
“When you are in the bathroom do you shut the door?”
When people are communicating 1:1 or in a private chat group they assume that conversation is only being had by the relevant parties. If you are using apps or services that don’t leverage E2E encryption than that might not be the case. As seen by recent news 1 2 3 4 there have been state actor attacks against the SMS service, as well as “normal” day to day mining of your private information by big tech giants.
Recommended Chat Apps
As always do your own research and weigh the pros and cons of any software choices.
Signal
State-of-the-art end-to-end encryption (powered by the open source Signal Protocol) keeps your conversations secure. They can’t read your messages or listen to your calls, and no one else can either. Privacy isn’t an optional mode — it’s just the way that Signal works. Every message, every call, every time.
- Articles
- Signal is secure, as proven by hackers
- Overview of third-party security audits
- Signal Protocol
- Overview of third-party security audits
Briar
Censorship-resistant peer-to-peer messaging that bypasses centralized servers. Connect via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Tor, with privacy built-in.
- Articles
- Briar - Security Audit
- Briar App Ban: Delhi High Court Asks Indian Govt to Release Redacted Copy of Blocking Order
Session
- Leverages the Tor network for increased privacy
- Does not require phone number or other PII to use
- Does NOT support 2FA
- Articles
- Quarkslab 3rd Party Security Audit
- Session Messenger Review – Best Secure Messaging App?
- Encrypted Chat App ‘Session’ Leaves Australia After Visit From Police
- Undermining your privacy? Session says no and leaves Australia
- Session Messenger Review – Best Secure Messaging App?
Apps NOT Recommended
- Owned by Meta. Collects a lot of information. 2. Stores data on their servers
- SMS
- Completely insecure and already hacked during Salt Typhoon. Simjacking exists as well
- Telegram
- While it has a lot of good secure/privacy features they are closed source and leverage their own encryption. With the opacity of their protocols/code, I cannot recommend them