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Ask HN: Best encrypted messaging app atm?

• mrmondo 10y ago
  Signal has had several independent security reviews and has come out on top each time.
• blyuher 10y ago
  Signal (https://whispersystems.org/ https://whispersystems.org/) got a good score from EFF. You may find this guide helpful - https://medium.freecodecamp.com/tor-signal-and-beyond-a-law-abiding-citizens-guide-to-privacy-1a593f2104c3#.3m4hd3g96 https://medium.freecodecamp.com/tor-signal-and-beyond-a-law-... edit: clarification
  • lorenzhs 10y ago
    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 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.
    • gcb0 10y ago
      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.
    • adrianN 10y ago
      The exact same dangers exist with normal browsing. Intermediate nodes on your route can do whatever they want unless you use proper encryption. In fact, things like sniffing your traffic are routinely done by $ThreeLetterAgency.
      • lorenzhs 10y ago
        Your argument is a classical example of "correct in theory, wildly misleading in practice". As you can see on https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/badRelays https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/badRelays (list isn't updated any more, so the real list is likely much longer) or http://www.cs.kau.se/philwint/spoiled_onions/techreport.pdf http://www.cs.kau.se/philwint/spoiled_onions/techreport.pdf, there have been several cases where relays actively interfered with user traffic in a malicious way. Malicious exit nodes are used to MitM connections and sniff sensitive data. Note that Tor doesn't mitigate the three-letter agency problem, as they can just sniff the exit node's target (I certainly would, there's bound to be lots of interesting traffic there).
    • jsjohnst 10y ago
      An alternative is to just turn the device off before you walk up to a potential issue. That way you're assured that the TouchID won't be accepted (last thing you'd want is to learn it only registered X presses rather than the Y required to disable). In the event you are caught off-guard, disabling TouchID is as simple as just holding in the power button until the screen goes black. If you practice this a few times, you could accomplish this even in a stressful situation.
• jaboutboul 10y ago
  Check out the EFF's Secure Messaging Scorecard: https://www.eff.org/node/82654 https://www.eff.org/node/82654 Personally I use Signal and Whatsapp from that list.
  • pmlnr 10y ago
    Whatsapp as secure messaging? Sure.
    • Madsn 10y ago
      You may be interested in: https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp-complete/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp-complete/
• metafex 10y ago
  Check this comparison table: http://öä.eu/bac.html http://öä.eu/bac.html (or the full paper at /bac.pdf)
• desfan 10y ago
  I personally like Wickr (https://www.wickr.com https://www.wickr.com). Although they're not as open as Signal, they've also passed several security reviews and I do like their transparency reviews (https://www.wickr.com/about-us/blog/2016/08/01/wickr-transparency-report4 https://www.wickr.com/about-us/blog/2016/08/01/wickr-transpa...)
  • aorth 10y ago
    A recent post about Wickr's bug bounty program painted them in a pretty poor light. The company appears to have invited security researchers to contribute to a bug bounty program and then, after researchers found and reported dozens of issues, the company fixed the bugs and never paid or credited the researchers. https://www.vulnerability-db.com/?q=articles/2016/10/27/wickr-inc-when-honesty-disappears-behind-vcp-mountain https://www.vulnerability-db.com/?q=articles/2016/10/27/wick...
• lorenzhs 10y ago
  Security people recommend Signal a lot (e.g. https://medium.com/@thegrugq/signal-intelligence-free-for-all-5993c2f72f90 https://medium.com/@thegrugq/signal-intelligence-free-for-al..., Snowden uses it and repeatedly recommended it: https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/661313394906161152 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.
  • pmlnr 10y ago
    Encrypted video calls will crush mobile CPUs in my opinion, but indeed it would be nice to have one.
    • krrrh 10y ago
      I'm curious if you have some real insight on this, because my understanding is that Facetime video calls are end-to-end encrypted, and the battery drain seems to be pretty minimal even on older devices.
      • lorenzhs 10y ago
        What's your definition of "pretty minimal"? FaceTime has noticeable battery usage in my experience, but it's not excessive. I'm not sure how it compares to unencrypted video chat, but I doubt it's much higher. Crypto is typically accelerated in mobile devices these days. I would guess that the screen and network (Modem/wifi active all the time) are the battery-draining bits, and while encoding and encryption don't help, they're hardware-accelerated. That's only a guess, though, and I'd appreciate it if anyone had data on this.
    • Siimteller 10y ago
      Video calls in general are CPU/battery heavy operations, I've done pretty long ones with Wire (my employer) and yes, the phone gets warm but no issues with performance (iPhone 6).
• urza 10y ago
  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 https://threema.ch/en/ https://threema.ch/en/
  • warcode 10y ago
    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.
  • nickik 10y ago
    The major reason why we (IT group in Switzerland) are not using it as much, is because they are still not providing a Desktop Client.
    • urza 10y ago
      Yes, desktop client that would sync with mobile would be great. But I dont think their current architecture allows it, it is one device = one account.
    • Siimteller 10y ago
      Have you looked into Wire as an alternative? Also HQd in Switzerland, E2EE with multi-device and desktop support + open source. Happy to walk you through it (I'm siim@wire.com).
• sgt 10y ago
  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 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."
  • lorenzhs 10y ago
    The issue with iMessage is that it doesn't warn you when a contact's key changes. That opens the door for MitM attacks. Signal and WhatsApp (with a setting) do much better on that front.
    • Jaepa 10y ago
      Unless they've updated this, they can but don't by default.
  • hannob 10y ago
    > 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-of-week-apple-imessage/ 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.
    • sgt 10y ago
      Yes, but all software may have bugs. The attack you referred to was fixed in 9.3, and going forward there are no known attacks as far as I know. I think it's safe to assume a lot of people out there are continuously trying to break the iMessage crypto. For attacks that are not disclosed to the public (e.g. intelligence agencies that would like to keep it secret), this can really apply to any of the other competitors including Signal.
• thinkMOAR 10y ago
  Doesn't say to require to be instant messaging, so my best suggestion: A pigeon with sd card tied to its leg with PGP encrypted data.
  • pmlnr 10y ago
    Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway. —Tanenbaum, Andrew S.
• pmlnr 10y ago
  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/ https://www.torproject.org/ [2]: https://wiki.bitlbee.org/bitlbee-otr https://wiki.bitlbee.org/bitlbee-otr [3]: https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/ThirdPartyPlugins#SecurityandPrivacy https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/ThirdPartyPlugins#Securitya... [4]: https://tox.chat/ https://tox.chat/ [5]: https://prism-break.org/en/protocols/ https://prism-break.org/en/protocols/ [6]: https://chatsecure.org/ https://chatsecure.org/ [7]: https://www.xabber.com/ https://www.xabber.com/
  • pmlnr 10y ago
    Downvoted? Sometimes I don't understand people. Please give a reason.
• jedisct1 10y ago
  I like https://wire.com https://wire.com and https://threema.ch/en https://threema.ch/en
  • libeclipse 10y ago
    Wire was in the middle of a shitstorm a while back iirc because it falsly advertised that it encrypted everything end-to-end, when in actual fact only text was so.
    • tmikaeld 10y ago
      Doesn't wire use Webrtc? I thought it was encrypted end to end by default. Do you have a source to this?
    • anon4711 10y ago
      Would you mind backing that up with a link?
    • CmdSft 10y ago
      I think you might be mistaking this with Telegram http://gizmodo.com/why-you-should-stop-using-telegram-right-now-1782557415 http://gizmodo.com/why-you-should-stop-using-telegram-right-...
    • libeclipse 10y ago
      Here's a source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2855745/new-communications-app-wire-tones-down-encryption-claims.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2855745/new-communications-ap... My mistake. Text isn't end-to-end, only calls are.
      • CmdSft 10y ago
        The current Privacy page[1] seems to indicate that, at least now, text, image and voice is end-to-end encrypted. [1]: https://wire.com/privacy/ https://wire.com/privacy/
      • tdkl 10y ago
• mrbiber 10y ago
  At the moment, Signal and Wire seem to be the best options. They have open-source clients, end-to-end encryption, are easy enough to use that even less-computer savy people can be realistically convinced to use them and they seem to offer decent protection for metadata (not technical, but policy-wise). 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 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 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.
  • nickik 10y ago
    This is a great answer. I was about to recommend the same, Signal for now, Matrix eventually. I did not know about Briar, that seems useful, even for cases where you are just of the grid with your friends.
    • int_19h 10y ago
      Is there any particular reason why you wouldn't recommend Matrix/Riot today, for someone who is technically proficient?
  • sprafa 10y ago
    I've heard Signal has US Government backing, which makes me scared for an NSA backdoor. Any idea about this?
    • 10y ago
• biokoda 10y ago
  The most secure app is Biocoded: https://biocoded.com/home 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.
  • Foxboron 10y ago
    Where is the source code?
    • ChoGGi 10y ago
      "Biocoded source code, security protocols and implementations are audited by independent security agencies. Open source is not a guarantee or even an indicator of security. For sensitive governmental and corporate use, open source solutions are often dismissed outright." https://biocoded.com/faq#0 https://biocoded.com/faq#0
      • Foxboron 10y ago
        So pretty bad for any privacy aware consumer. Got it!
      • huhtenberg 10y ago
        > Open source is not a guarantee or even an indicator of security. This is true. > For sensitive governmental and corporate use, open source solutions are often dismissed outright." But this is a false argument. Open source solutions aren't dismissed because they are open source per se, but because they generally lack predictable longer-term support.
        • biokoda 10y ago
          > But this is a false argument. Not for governments. Some are pragmatic, others will not even consider it if open source.
• yousifa 10y ago
  I am working on a messaging & email encryption platform (for the reason you mentioned) which will finally make encryption easy to use for non tech savvy people. It is based on PGP, source will be available. If anyone is interested in helping, giving feedback or learning more send me an email (in my bio or my username at gmail.com)
  • luxpir 10y ago
    Can you tell us all more here?
    • yousifa 10y ago
      Sure, Situation: Us "techies" know or easily can learn how to set up encryption and protect ourselves, the general public will not. Everyone needs encryption but most will only use it if: -their friends are using it -it is so easy a cave man can do it -it is beautiful Complication: Current products are hard to use and are built for hackers. Encryption products need to build in vitality and understand the use cases of most users. To be successful this must be built with usability and UX first, not security methods first. Sormthing pretty decent that people use is much better than a great system that most people don't use. Solution: Browser plugins that act like they are a part of the current email experience. Beautiful phone apps that give users the same functionality that they are used to having with much better security. More info below, this is my current thought process and work, not perfect I'm sure, would love input. UX: Most users use email via browsers and default phone app. Initial plan is browser plugins + standalone phone app. Browser plugins exist for pgp but are too complex for the general public to understand and set up and require a user to get the recipient's key. We streamline the process by just having the user click "encrypt", enter a passphrase (will get to this in tech section), and click send. We take care of setting up the recipient with their account if they don't have one to be able to view their message. As for mobile messaging, users will enter their passphrase when launching the app and then be able to freely message, call, video chat until the switch to another app or exit. Tech: Encryption using private/public key pairs according to pgp spec, of which implementation is gpg. Encryption/decryption happens on device or browser. We host last known good info for user public keys to prevent MITM attacks and will only use other sources if we don't have info of a user. Private keys are stored on our platform for cross device compatibility and so they are not stored on the users device. However these keys will be encrypted/decrypted on the users device using symmetric key encryption implemented as a complex passphrase.
• sergiMunoz 10y ago
  testing
• sergiMunoz 10y ago
  testing2
• agounaris 10y ago
  Aren't all of them encrypted now? I'm using telegram
  • donkeyd 10y ago
    WhatsApp is also encrypted, but it does share your data with Facebook. So while end-to-end encryption always sounds secure, it not always is.
    • sprafa 10y ago
      Yes, this was what led me to now look for an alternative to WhatsApp.
  • schlowmo 10y ago
    This is only partly true for telegram and the fact that people repeatedly get it wrong is more harmful than if Telegram wasn't encrypted at all and everybody would know it. Telegram use end-to-end encryption only on so called "Secret Chats".[0] And in my experience very few people use "Secret Chats". This is the main reason I don't use it anymore and recommend against using it to others. [0]https://telegram.org/faq#q-so-how-do-you-encrypt-data https://telegram.org/faq#q-so-how-do-you-encrypt-data
• mrsomeone7 10y ago
  The problem with Signal is that no one I know is using it :-(
• sidcool 10y ago
  What about WhatsApp which is end to end encrypted
• nye2k 10y ago
  Kodex (https://kodex.im/ https://kodex.im/) FHE. Client side keys only. Open source here (https://github.com/kryptnostic/krypto https://github.com/kryptnostic/krypto)
• mordnis 10y ago
  I see no one recommending Ring. Is there something particualrly wrong with it?
• bert2002 10y ago
  Signal for sure.
• justanton 10y ago
  Surprised that no one has mentioned Telegram https://telegram.org/ https://telegram.org/ so far: Encryption, fantastic stickers, photo editor, tons of interesting channels, probably the best bots platform out there. + all mobile platforms and desktop version (as well as web based) You can also find it's code on github.
  • __derek__ 10y ago
    The last I read was that Telegram was not secure. Is that not the case?
    • dylz 10y ago
      IIRC telegram secret chats are somewhat fine, all normal chat and group chat is insecure Correct me if I'm wrong though
      • __derek__ 10y ago
        Reading more about it, I think you're right.
• ASmith__ 10y ago
  Retroshare's private messaging tools, upgraded to coco20 end-end and able to be routed optionally via I2P as well as via Tor anonymous networks. Retroshare also has a optional VOIP plugin.
• hiram112 10y ago
  I've been successful in getting a few friends to use Blackberry Messenger. It's polished, has a lot of useful features, and is now free.
• tmaly 10y ago
  I use WhatsApp. I know it says end to end encryption, but I do not know how good that aspect of it really is. How is FB making any money from it if everything is encrypted?
  • Jaepa 10y ago
    Onboarding non-US users to Facebook (Brazil & India particularly) & using address book contacts & metainfo from encrypted communications to create social graphs. I've never really understood the argument of well its Facebook so obviously they are lying. They are getting a lot of value out WhatApp, and the blowback on Facebook would be pretty significant if they were lying and found out.
• Siimteller 10y ago
  I've found https://www.securemessagingapps.com https://www.securemessagingapps.com to be an interesting source of comparison. The author seems to actively update it based on crowd-submissions. There's also http://öä.eu/bac.html http://öä.eu/bac.html (based on http://öä.eu/bac.pdf http://öä.eu/bac.pdf thesis) but I've emailed with the author and he said that he's not keeping it up to date.
• martygwilliams 10y ago
  zyptonite.com has some great features. Group messaging, group voice calls and group video calls are hard to come by in the "paranoid encrypt everything" world that we seem to find ourselves. That being said, one of their most recent updates hosed my account so badly that I just switched to Signal. I've also used Wire and I really liked it, but I had the same problem. The update to the new technology broke it in such a way that I can't actually message anyone anymore. If Wire can get their ducks in a row, I might switch back.