Your Messages Aren’t as Private as You Think, Here’s How to Fix That
In this very connected world, it becomes more and more difficult to keep private private things. Each text or email we send is there for bad players, government agencies and even the company you pay for services to recover. They don’t just want your name and number, they want as much data as they can get their hands, so that they can identify the models that can be sold or otherwise used.
Companies have done a company to collect our data and, apparently, also includes your text messages. Combine this with pirates, phishing scams and all other dangers hiding, and it becomes easy to see why I went to a secure messaging application. At this point, it is not paranoia, it is intelligent.
What makes a secure messaging application?
Being secure means that from the moment you press Send and your message opens to the other person’s screen, there is no way that a bad actor can read this message, not pirates, not application developers or your phone operator. This is done via end -to -end encryption. But this is only part of the solution.
Metadata can be very revealing; In fact, metadata is often used in the courts. Thus, a secure application must collect the absolute minimum quantity of metadata. Finally, being open-source and having third-party listeners are important for credibility and responsibility. The three applications here do an excellent work balancing confidentiality and conviviality.
3. Signal
The signal is widely considered to be the most secure messaging application. In fact, its end -to -end encryption called Signal Protocol is used by Google, Facebook and other large technological companies. What it means for you is that each message, call, photo or file is protected. There is no user tracking, no ads and no frightening “personalization” engines mining your data. Compared to competitors like WhatsApp or Telegram, the signal is entirely open-source, including its server code. It is not based on advertisements or user data for income, and the only metadata at which it retains is the date and time of your last connection.
Although the signal requires a phone number to register, it does not require an email address. There is no profile construction and it stores practically nothing about its servers. Additional features such as the disappearance of messages, screen safety to block screenshots and the possibility of blurring faces in the photos show that the signal takes your private life seriously.
2. Threema
Threema is the only paid application on this list. The business model of Threema is not supported by announcements or donations, and it does not harvest your data. Its income comes from its users. For personal use, this is a single cost, but it offers basic, professionals and premises subscription levels that offer more functionalities such as CVR compliance and access to the API. When writing these lines, it was $ 5.99 in the Apple App Store.
What I like about Threema is that it does not require an email address or telephone number. During the installation process, you are attributed to a random Threema ID which is not linked to your identity in any way. Threema operates in Switzerland, putting it under some of the most strict privacy laws in the world. The messages are deleted from servers as soon as they are delivered, and the metadata is minimized to the point where it is fundamentally useless to anyone who tries to build a profile of you.
It also has features that make it more attractive for companies, such as compliance with the GDPR, integrated surveys, anonymous group cats and optional self-hosting.
1. element
The element is not as polite or rationalized as the signal or the Threema, but I like their decentralized approach. You can use the Element Hosted Service, run your own HomeServer or choose another supplier, giving you total control over your data. The matrix protocol of the element supports end-to-end encryption, as well as features such as bridging towards other communication platforms, threaded conversations, integrated surveys and the possibility of hosting multi-person group cats or persistent parts that look more like Slack channels than a message thread. The application is free for personal use and has a paid business level which includes things such as managed accommodation, scaling, compliance, application integrations and premium support.
While Signal and Threema keep things simple, the element can feel too complex if everything you are looking for is private individual cats. For example, private rooms are secure by default, but public or bridged rooms may not be, I must therefore check these parameters when I configure them. In addition, the confidentiality of the metadata depends on who directs your hommeserver. If you are not hosting, you must trust your supplier. That said, if you want more control over where your data lives, interoperability and advanced collaboration tools in addition to encryption, Element offers more than others in this category.
Conclusion
We are beyond the point where we can simply count on the default messaging of telephone operators or technological companies. Between corporate data collection, increasingly sophisticated cyber-starts and government surveillance, private communication is not a luxury, it is a necessity.
The carriers always record the metadata on whom you are talking about and when, and in some cases, I have a history of sharing this information, voluntarily or under pressure. Platforms like Facebook are data collection engines that work to create behavioral profiles that feed the advertising industry out of control. Secure messaging is to recover control of your own conversations, ensuring that your words are read only by the person you want.
