Why You Should (not?) Use Signal
By: Shoot The Messenger
Tags: Privacy, Technology, Computers, Data, Communication

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Privacy. Security. Encryption. These are all nouns. And mostly the reasons why you should be using Signal over any other messaging app if those nouns are important to you. With the news of WhatsApp being compromised by governments to target journalists and activists, the days where the security minded were seen as tin-foil-hat conspiracy theorists, dismissed with a waving hand and “oh stop overreacting, there’s nothing to worry about” aren’t aging well.

Background:

Concerns over data and big brother have been rekindled lately, as is the case with most security issues. They come in waves, the latest after Edward Snowden stepped back into the spotlight with a new book and an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast. And the reality of the matter is that for anyone using a highly-corporatized messaging app, you have no idea if your messages are safe. You can’t trust WhatsApp; you can’t trust Facebook. Apple has stood up on behalf of people’s privacy before, but there’s no way of guaranteeing that one day public perception or political pressure won’t come and undo all of that.

And so, Signal. Signal is a basic app, with airtight end-to-end encryption everywhere: chats, groups, voice calls, video calls. When it comes to privacy concerns, you can’t really do much better — Signal is a nonprofit organization, whose mission is “to develop open source privacy technology that protects free expression and enables secure global communication”. Its founder, Moxie Marlinspike — no, that’s not a Harry Potter character — walks the walk and has taken his fair share of heat from the US government for his stance on security.

Features:

If you’re used to iMessage or WhatsApp, Signal gives you most of the features you’ve come to expect — media and file sharing, group chats, GIFs. You’ll pretty much only be missing group voice and video calls on the WhatsApp/FaceTime side, and for the iMessage side, you won’t have as much cross-platform availability, and you won’t have reactions or the weird message effect options. But does anyone actually use those?

And with that, you have the best guarantee of your correspondence being “for your eyes only”. The only concern is that Signal isn’t decentralized — it’s established as a US-based company, and therefore could one day be forced into compliance if legislation comes that mandates backdoors or government access to end-to-end-encrypted apps.

By design, an end-to-end-encrypted message is foolproof. Signal, as the courier, has no way of seeing what’s inside the message. Here’s a video that describes end-to-end encryption in more detail, but think of it as sending a locked safe through the mail. The postal service knows that you’re sending a package to your recipient’s address, but they have no way of knowing the contents or opening it. If someone requested the message data from your account, all Signal could provide is a record that messages were sent, but as to what they said, they have no way of knowing. But if they were required by law to break that encryption with a backdoor… sayonara, security.

The Upside

So who should switch to Signal, then? There are a few use cases. For journalists and activists who have reason to feel they could be targeted, Signal is an absolute must. If you umm, maybe have some things to hide or do things you wouldn’t want the police to know about, Signal is a good idea. If you’re trying to distance yourself from the corporate intelligence complex, it’s a step in the right direction. But I think if you aren’t “at risk” or looking to make a big political stance, digitally protesting in your Guy Fawkes mask and black hoodie, it’s not really necessary.

The Downsides

Signal has a bit of an image problem — because its main users mostly those with something to hide, it gives the impression you’re either the guy who used to sell me weed in high school, or that you walk around with a trenchcoat and sunglasses that are too small for your face. As far as “communities” go, Signal’s is one of the last that I’d want to identify with. You can have a privacy-and-security-forward app without all the fire and brimstone.

Telegram for example, actually feels like it has a community, filled with channels and discussion groups, silly stickers, rather than a collection of individual loners with a handful of secret contacts in a separate app. For an app to really break through, it needs to be something I could easily convince both my friends and my Aunt Janice to download. If that isn’t on the table, there isn’t much point in proceeding. If it can’t fully replace what I’m using, and I can’t keep all my contacts in the same place, a new app becomes more of a bother than a benefit.

I’ve said it before — Signal or Telegram, Signal or Telegram. Telegram does everything Signal does, other than video calls and end-to-end encrypted group chats. You can use Telegram on more than just one phone and one computer. You can send large files, use it as cloud storage, customize its appearance, instantly sync across devices.

Telegram uses distributed servers, so even for its not-end-to-end-encrypted “cloud chats”, a government can’t get access to them because they have no legal jurisdiction over Telegram. By using Telegram’s non-end-to-end chats, the only concern is that you’re trusting Telegram to not sell their contents to someone. Which they haven’t, and won’t. Telegram is another not-for-profit company taking the side of the people, much like Signal. Except Telegram as a company is also distributed and can dodge legislation, while also pumping out more features than Signal.

It’s a bit of an apples and oranges comparison. I think Signal is focused on security, while Telegram focuses on functionality. For me personally, and I think most people, they’ll get more out of Telegram than Signal. I covered it before, but you can’t back up Signal, you can’t easily switch devices, you can’t delete your messages — all things that are pretty damn annoying to me. But if you don’t need all the fancy features and just want to be incognito, go get yourself some Signal.