The other one. No, not WhatsApp. Telegram. It hit 100 million users

Wednesday 24th February 2016 19:16 GMT x 7

a Russian messaging app?

And we're supposed to believe its not backdoored by Putin's pets?

Please, pull the other one

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1. Wednesday 24th February 2016 19:39 GMT Paul Crawford
  
  Just like we should believe that WhatsApp is not backdoored by the NSA?
  
  Chose your messaging system based on (a) how public the code / analysis / review is, or more likely (b) on who is most likely to be interested in screwing you over for personal reasons.
  
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  1. Wednesday 24th February 2016 19:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    (C) You will choose your messaging app based on what your friends and family are already using.
    
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    1. Wednesday 24th February 2016 20:02 GMT wolfetone
      
      "(C) You will choose your messaging app based on what your friends and family are already using."
      
      Sadly this is the trump card. I was on a BlackBerry once and used BBM and most of the people I knew did. Then at the finish up I just had the girlfriend on there and that was it. Everyone else went off to Snapchat or WhatsApp - and I didn't follow.
      
      Bollocks to it, bollocks to it all. I just want to text someone or call them, anything else they get an email. If they get nothing from me then they get the hint.
      
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    2. Thursday 25th February 2016 00:07 GMT allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
      
      (D) You discover that you can live happily without a messaging app after all!
      
      (What I really want is a massaging app, but that's neither here nor there.)
      
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Wednesday 24th February 2016 20:35 GMT To Mars in Man Bras!

No Love For Signal?

I use Signal: https://whispersystems.org/

It's open source and can send normal SMS as well as secure encrypted ones. So, you can still use it for all your messaging, even if some of your contacts aren't signed up for it.

No affiliation, etc. Just wondered why it never gets a mention, when this kind of app is being discussed.

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1. Thursday 25th February 2016 05:44 GMT noj
  
  Re: No Love For Signal?
  
  Not to mention encrypted phone calls. I use Signal as well. FWIW I have mentioned Signal, here on The Reg and elsewhere, but few people comment on it.
  
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2. Thursday 25th February 2016 13:35 GMT Charlie Clark
  
  Re: No Love For Signal?
  
  Signal, and its predecessor, have been mentioned in the past on The Register.
  
  I use Signal as well but it's not perfect: the login is tied to the telephone number so you can use the same account on different devices and device support is limited.
  
  But I think the main reason for its lack of popularity is that it simply (and deliberately) isn't "social" enough. The big feature of all the others is the ability to set up groups. They don't really care about security.
  
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Thursday 25th February 2016 02:29 GMT gollux

Everyone should use an app whose encryption programming and implementation is described by cryptography experts "so awful that reading it is like being stabbed in the eye with a fork".

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Thursday 25th February 2016 13:37 GMT Charlie Clark

Messaging apps that offer end-to-end encryption such as WhatsApp

Really? I thought WhatsApp was only using encryption between devices and its servers. You can't do interoperability between platforms unless they all support end-to-end encryption.

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Thursday 25th February 2016 14:29 GMT Ed 11

It was over a year ago that WhatsApp announced (to a flurry of publicity) that they were implementing end-to-end encryption, albeit only for Android to Android conversations. They still haven't rolled it out to iOS or other platforms, so their current effort is entirely half arsed.

Telegram's encryption might be homebrewed, but at least it is available across platforms (unlike WhatsApp), and they've spoken loudly of a prize if anyone can break it and that prize remains unclaimed.

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