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What's the best messaging platform?
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2024
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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.
The real litmus test right here.
I don't think so, do you think it is better to arrest 1 person and make flew away all the others users than let this guy live in peace and spy on millions others?
I mean if they'd use the backdoor no one would know. It's not like they would declare ah ye we used our secret Signal backdoor.
For sure
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
Right
I think than Signal messages are mostly not backdoored but maybe all the profile picture, the name and the description are surely leaked to US gov if they found most of the servers
Signal has been subpoena'd multiple times by the US government to hand over all user data. Signal complied. The only data that Signal gave, because it's the only data they themselves have access to, is the username, the unix timestamp of when the account was created, and the unix timestamp of when they last signed on.
That's not how it works. All metadata is also E2EE with the same protocol. Even if they control all servers it wouldn't change much.
Okay thanks, and when you speak about "crypto based messaging" what does it means?
Various schemes to use the cryptography of blockchains to send messages in a decentralized and theoretically secure way. The classic version of this used by early darknets was Bitmessage. There's some more recent takes via Ethereum too
Ok thx
If you see something that says it uses blockchain to store your data, run away from it. Blockchain is used to make records permanent, not private. The only way to delete data from a blockchain is to erase the blockchain from existence, which cryptocurrency bros will never want to do (because that's where all their money is).
I miss the good old days when crypto meant cryptography and not cryptocurrency.
Absolutely false, you can store data encrypted on the blockchain, such that it can be read only by a recipient. In this way it functions no differently than sending an encrypted email. But Bitmessage isn't even a cryptocurrency, it just uses the ideas from them
Why would you want to store messages, even encrypted ones, on a publicly accessible distributed database with no delete function?
Bitmessage was created well before the concept of post quantum encryption was widely discussed, so it is not safe for that use case.
... because it's publicly accessible with no delete function
Correct, and that is bad. Very bad. The fact that in BitMessage, "every message gets sent to everyone" is something nobody wants or asked for.
Seems self-evident to me why the protocol has been languishing and mostly ignored for the past decade or so.
Thx