If we wanted to talk about secure mobile communications, in the sense that they cannot be intercepted or spied on from the outside, we should forget all the normal applications of a phone, including that of SMS, that of Facebook and Whatsapp. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a lobby group that aims to "defend civil liberties in the digital world", has provided some important information on how the companies that manage the various messaging applications care about the privacy of their users . A beautiful times table has therefore been published where a privacy and security score has been assigned for each message app. The table shows that the most used applications in the world: Whatsapp, iMessage, Facebook Chat, Skype, Viber and Yahoo Messenger, have many flaws.
In particular, we can see how Whatsapp for example, even if it protects messages in transit, does not make them encrypted on the company's servers, giving the possibility to the employees who manage the servers to read them in the clear. This also happens for Facebook and Google chat which do not have a system that allows users to identify the true identity of the people with whom they communicate and do not make public the programming code for an objective judgment by experts.
UPDATE: Whatsapp since 2016 has end-to-end encryption .
According to the EEF report , a truly secure messaging app should have the following requirements :
- Encrypt messages at all stages of communication.
- End-to-end encryption so that employees of the company that manages the messaging service cannot read the communications.
- Ability to check with whom you are communicating.
- Security of communication history in case cryptographic keys are stolen.
- The app code can be judged by external and independent inspectors.
- The design and implementation of cryptography is documented.
- The code has been checked over the past year.
If an application does not meet at least one of the first four criteria, it can be considered unprotected. This means that the most popular communication applications such as BlackBerry Messenger, Facebook Chat, iMessage, Skype, Snapchat, Viber and WhatsApp are insecure and only iMessage meets 2 of the first 4 requirements. The worrying thing is that all the parent companies, except for Apple, can decipher and read any message exchanged . The natural consequence is that governments and authorities can request timelines to read these messages when they deem it most appropriate.
After all this interesting and even a little upsetting speech, you can not help but accept reality and continue to text with friends and relatives with the usual apps, as long as you do not want to really establish communication in certain circumstances secure and encrypted. Although they work differently, there are some applications that respect all parameters for secure, encrypted and waterproof communication .
Those who are concerned about privacy or if they want communication that leaves no traces and cannot be intercepted can then use one of these apps:
1) ChatSecure, for Android and iOS, is free and uses "cryptographic open source libraries", such as XMPP, OTR and Tor, to ensure that messages remain completely private.
2) Silent Circle is a paid application (with a rather expensive subscription) for Android and iOS that works a bit like Skype and allows you to make fully encrypted phone calls and video calls. It is also possible to call users who don't have the application installed and the call will be encrypted anyway. However, Silent Circle is aimed at businessmen or politicians (ours obviously don't know it) with delicate assignments.
3) Signal Messenger for Android, iPhone and web is the encrypted chat that also allows you to make phone calls protected from eavesdropping. It is possible to send instant messages with text, images and videos in the chat and also to phone a person and the call will be encrypted.
4) Telegram does not have a perfect score but still remains an almost 100% secure messaging app.
5) Wickr is an app for Android and iPhone to chat securely and privately, without the possibility of intercepting messages, with end-to-end encryption.
The special feature of this special application, widely used by hackers, is that it is a chat with self-destructing messages .
