On 07/28/2016 10:47 PM, Bastiani Fortress wrote:

I installed signal on my phone with some enthusiasm, but it's practically useless because no one around me adopted it yet. It's sad that once a "social" app dominates the market, it's very hard to get people to switch to better alternatives unless there is a security scandal or something. Same goes with ring...


Personally I think having to expose the phone number of a smartphone to another user to establish a chat is an incredible security risk in the short and long run and leads to all sorts of metadata harvesting of your unencrypted info. It appears one should keep a low-budget smartphone for that use instead of their main number for better persec. 

I questioned Morgan Mayhem (Intercept's sysadmin/cybersec guy) about that when he broached how secure signal is (he's one of the developers) on his twitter feed. Never got a reply.

Telegram allows the use of an @name instead of exposing your number if you set up an account but I'm unsure what happens when a connection is established and the contact is added to you contact list

Rr



4:53 AM, July 29, 2016, Rayzer <rayzer@riseup.net>:
Apple’s iMessage too! ("Signal leaves virtually nothing.")

Quote source @thegrugq, Twitter
https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/758833939020521472

WhatsApp Forensic Artifacts: Chats Aren’t Being Deleted

Posted on July 28, 2016

Sorry, folks, while experts are saying the encryption checks out in
WhatsApp, it looks like the latest version of the app tested leaves
forensic trace of all of your chats, even after you’ve deleted, cleared,
or archived them… even if you “Clear All Chats”. In fact, the only way
to get rid of them appears to be to delete the app entirely.

To test, I installed the app and started a few different threads. I then
archived some, cleared, some, and deleted some threads. I made a second
backup after running the “Clear All Chats” function in WhatsApp. None of
these deletion or archival options made any difference in how deleted
records were preserved. In all cases, the deleted SQLite records
remained intact in the database.

More, including 'How WhatsApp Can Fix This':
http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/?p=6143





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You’re not from the Castle, you’re not from the village, you are nothing. Unfortunately, though, you are something, a stranger.