Post: #1

To the men of this forum, I won't belabor for too long the importance of personal security and privacy in this day in age. Roosh got doxxed, his family harassed, there was the meetup death threats, the Toronto incident, and on and on the list goes.

Suffice it to say we live in dangerous times for personal information security.

It has been talked about in other threads the importance of VPN for securing your web browsing activities. Today, I'll give a brief overview on how to secure your text messages.

After trying multiple text programs, I've settled with Signal.

Why, you may ask? It is endorsed by Edward Snowden (and used by him on a daily basis) and also Bruce Schneier, one of the best I.T. security professionals in the world.

You can send encrypted messages to another person who also has Signal installed on their phone, in additional to making secured phone calls, with secret passphrase authentication for each call.

The feature set is robust, the U.I. is clean and gets the job done, and lastly, (and most importantly!) the program is open-source, so you can audit the code to ensure there is no malware, snooping or other crap you don't want in there. Good luck getting Mark Zuckerberg to be so transparent!

Bottom line is, you don't have a choice but to secure your communications. Privacy of communication is a key component of a free society. As men who hold personal liberty dear, I strongly encourage you to avoid using any unencrypted channel.

Also, as a friendly reminder, now would be a good time to use a burner email address as recommended by Roosh for the forum registration. In case this forum is ever breached by some 3rd party, you don't want your personal email and identity splashed online. We know that there are many factions that would like nothing better than to sue you, make you lose your job, wreck your family, or even violently attack you or your loved ones. Sloppiness is no excuse.

Lock your communications down men.

Back to Signal...

Quote:From their official website:

PRIVATE MESSAGING
For iPhone and Android

+ Say Anything - Send high-quality group, text, picture, and video messages, all without SMS and MMS fees.
+ Be Yourself - Use your existing phone number and address book. There are no separate logins, usernames, passwords, or PINs to manage or lose.
+ Stay Private - We cannot read your messages, and no one else can either. + Everything is always end-to-end encrypted and painstakingly engineered in order to keep your communication safe.
+ Get Organized - Archive functionality makes it easy to keep track of the conversations that matter to you right now.
+ Pay Nothing - The development team is supported by community donations and grants. There are no advertisements, and it doesn't cost anything to use.

https://whispersystems.org

Apple IOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/signal-p...d874139669

Andriod: https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...DMessaging

Post: #2

An app that I definitely recommend to everyone. I use this to communicate with my wife and family, and it feels good to know that nobody can snoop on my conversations. It's just about privacy. "I have nothing to hide" is a bullshit excuse, because you wouldn't give your e-mail password to anyone even if you have nothing to hide. It's the same for private conversations.

Post: #3

If someone has the resources to hack my WhatsApp rest assured he will destroy me, taking these precautions wont help one bit. I know for a fact that someone who is powerful enough to hack into my whatsapp etc wont bother me unless im worth over 10m or something.

It's not the 90s anymore guys the years of the lamers, hacking is not that easy anymore. A scriptkiddie who gets his hands on a keylogger used to call himself a hacker in the 90s, its a whole different game now.

Remember the guy who shot the Russian Ambassador, they still couldn't access his whatsapp messages. This is the law enforcement we're talking about, there are Russian experts on the case too and they stilll coudln't manage to unlock the phone. If they couldn't unlock those messages in one week, there is no way they will make an effort to snoop in on you unless you did something really crazy.

Post: #4

WhatsApp offers end-to-end encryption, which is good. I don't think their source code is open source, so there isn't an extra layer of transparency. Still, it is better than using unsecured text messages. Any secured messaging program is better than unsecured.

Post: #5

Signal is safe because its open source, but be very wary when using programs like this which is not open source. The whole gulenist network in Turkey was exposed because they were stupid enough to use a program called "Bylock" to communicate with each other thinking it was super safe The law enforcement managed to hack that program and exposed the whole network and every single gulenist who used Bylock was arrested on the spot

Here's a link to that news

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2...saging-app

Post: #6

Yes, even "secure" programs can be honeypots for government actors or ID thieves. That's why it is important to never install .apk's on your phone from outside the app stores, or that aren't from a reliable vendor and/or open-source. Good information security practices are mostly mindset first, technology second.

Post: #7

You can´t say it will be secure. You know it´s secure today. But in 10 years it might not be anymore. Do you think the guys who created offshores in the seventies ever imagined they would have their name splashed in the internet? They didn´t. Back then you couldn´t know the evolution of technology. Internet didn´t even existed.

Signal, telegram, etc, etc are protected TODAY. Not in 10 years. Once it´s online. It can´t be erased.
The only anonimity existing today is personal talk and cash. You want to talk secretive. Use pigeons.

Post: #8

(12-26-2016 06:21 PM)chakalaka Wrote:  You can´t say it will be secure. You know it´s secure today. But in 10 years it might not be anymore. Do you think the guys who created offshores in the seventies ever imagined they would have their name splashed in the internet? They didn´t. Back then you couldn´t know the evolution of technology. Internet didn´t even existed.

Signal, telegram, etc, etc are protected TODAY. Not in 10 years. Once it´s online. It can´t be erased.
The only anonimity existing today is personal talk and cash. You want to talk secretive. Use pigeons.

Yes, any system that is online is capable of being compromised. The goal of using an encrypted channel is not to delude yourself into thinking you can't get hacked, but rather add an additional layer of security to prevent it from happening. Communicating in-person and by birds aren't always realistic, hence the need for more secure methods. If you have to say "where are we going to hide the body?" type conversations of extremely sensitive nature, then yes, do it in person.

Post: #9

(12-26-2016 06:25 PM)John Michael Kane Wrote:  

(12-26-2016 06:21 PM)chakalaka Wrote:  You can´t say it will be secure. You know it´s secure today. But in 10 years it might not be anymore. Do you think the guys who created offshores in the seventies ever imagined they would have their name splashed in the internet? They didn´t. Back then you couldn´t know the evolution of technology. Internet didn´t even existed.

Signal, telegram, etc, etc are protected TODAY. Not in 10 years. Once it´s online. It can´t be erased.
The only anonimity existing today is personal talk and cash. You want to talk secretive. Use pigeons.

Yes, any system that is online is capable of being compromised. The goal of using an encrypted channel is not to delude yourself into thinking you can't get hacked, but rather add an additional layer of security to prevent it from happening. Communicating in-person and by birds aren't always realistic, hence the need for more secure methods. If you have to say "where are we going to hide the body?" type conversations of extremely sensitive nature, then yes, do it in person.

The birds was an exaggeration. But to be honest. It doesn´t have to be a criminal conversation. Simple business secrets might need an extra layer of security.

What I´m trying to say is you can´t get hacked today. But in 5-10 years you probably will. And you can speak now thinking it´s secured and in the future discover it isn´t. Using it will not remove the risk. But of course it´s better to use it. It´s just another lock. Even if my car is locked I will still not leave valuable good in sight.

Only cash and personnel conversation can´t be traced. A better solution for more important talks is buying two phones. Between you and the person you want to talk to. Like walki talkies. Never say names in the conversation. And this phone is only used for those two persons. I believe the POTUS can only call 5 numbers from his phone.

Post: #10

There are already a few threads on this, but in short: unless you meet each contact in person and compare fingerprints before communicating, Signal is a waste of time. Other messengers, including WhatsApp and Telegram, have far stronger authentication mechanisms for people who aren't willing to do fingerprint checks for each conversation. The need to share phone numbers before communicating is also a significant drawback compared to other messengers that offer usernames.

If you're only looking for a more private replacement for WhatsApp, Wire seems to be the best of class at the moment. It uses the same underlying encryption scheme as Signal, it offers the ability to share a username instead of a phone number, and metadata (call/chat/IP address records, etc.) is kept under Swiss jurisdiction. The main drawback is that its user interface is awkward and takes some getting used to.

Post: #11

@DaveR, thanks for the additional suggestions. I'll look into them.

Post: #12

This seems like a cool app, maybe more useful for public figures than a mere civilians like me. I personally don't feel like I need to encrypt my day to day conversation more than what Whatsapp offers, it's not like I am sharing my sand castle attack strategies. It's just mundane chat.

Post: #13

I'm using the app Threema. Surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet. Anyone else here using it? I'm not an expert on tech stuff, but Threema works good. You can have private message exchanges and also group chats to organize people without giving away your phone number at all, and without the government spying on you.

Post: #14

(02-06-2017 04:37 AM)Revolutionary Wrote:  I'm using the app Threema. Surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet. Anyone else here using it? I'm not an expert on tech stuff, but Threema works good. You can have private message exchanges and also group chats to organize people without giving away your phone number at all, and without the government spying on you.

It's popular in German-speaking countries for some reason - I don't know why. It doesn't really hold water as a privacy-conscious app because the company doesn't release the source code for their client apps, making it impossible to verify any of their claims.

Post: #15

(02-06-2017 11:40 AM)DaveR Wrote:  It's popular in German-speaking countries for some reason - I don't know why.

You mean you don't know why, for some reason, other countries are not using it

Post: #16

(02-07-2017 02:52 PM)Revolutionary Wrote:  

(02-06-2017 11:40 AM)DaveR Wrote:  It's popular in German-speaking countries for some reason - I don't know why.

You mean you don't know why, for some reason, other countries are not using it

I don't mean that because there are better options from just about any use case:

Telegram is much more open, has a far larger user base, and offers more features than Threema.

Signal has the most hardened encryption implementation and is fully open-sourced. Unfortunately it requires a telephone number.

Wire is based on the Signal protocol, is fully open-sourced, doesn't require a telephone number, and has text, voice, video and screencasting features. The company is Swiss, so warrants have to go through Swiss courts.

I can't see any good reason to choose Threema, except maybe in Germany where it has a large user base.

Post: #17

Apparently, Signal can be bypassed by the CIA, but again, I'm not a tech expert.

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/839120909625606152
https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/

Post: #18

Article is misleading. The algorithm is fine, no encryption can protect you if you have malware installed on your machine.

Post: #19

It seems the only true way to securely communicate these days is face-to-face, in a room without cell phones, smart devices, computers, etc. I wonder if all this spying is going to lead to more people using old-fashion methods like dead-drops and carrier pigeons.

Post: #20

Yeah Wikileaks planted disinformation in their tweets, there's nothing that's been compromised with Signal and Whatsapp. Sad to see them be the bearer of fake news.

Post: #21

The problem with WhatsApp is that your chat MIGHT be saved in "the cloud" unencrypted. You can disable in settings but you never know if the person you're talking to has it enabled.
In a group chat it is even worse since those chances are bigger.

Post: #22