From the folks a C|Net, a comparison of Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram.
I don't really agree with some of the points on looks, but that is simply subjective so I won't bother to quibble. What I know is that it works, its free, its cross platform, and its international. I'm not in need of some of the encryption stuff they offer, but I do want privacy for me and my family in our communications.
Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram: We compare messaging app privacy and security
SIGNAL
- Does not collect data, only your phone number
- Free, no ads, funded by nonprofit Signal Foundation
- Fully open-source
- Encryption: Signal Protocol
Signal is a typical one-tap install app that can be found in your normal marketplaces like Google's
Play Store and Apple's
App Store and works just like the usual text-messaging app. It's an open-source development provided free of charge by the nonprofit Signal Foundation and has been famously used for years by high-profile privacy icons like Edward Snowden.
Signal's main function is that it can send -- to either an individual or a group -- fully encrypted text, video, audio and picture messages, after verifying your phone number and letting you independently verify other Signal users' identity...
When it comes to privacy, it's hard to beat Signal's offer. It doesn't store your user data. And beyond its encryption prowess, it gives you extended, onscreen privacy options, including app-specific locks, blank notification pop-ups,
face-blurring antisurveillance tools and disappearing messages.
Occasional bugs have proven that the tech is
far from bulletproof, of course, but the overall arc of Signal's reputation and results have kept it at the top of every
privacy-savvy person's list of identity protection tools.
The Guardian,
The Washington Post,
The New York Times (which also recommends WhatsApp) and
The Wall Street Journal all recommend using Signal to contact their reporters safely.
For years, the core privacy challenge for Signal lay not in its technology but in its wider adoption. Sending an encrypted Signal message is great, but if your recipient isn't using Signal, then your privacy may be nil. Think of it like the herd immunity created by
vaccines, but for your messaging privacy.
TELEGRAM
- Data linked to you: Name, phone number, contacts, user ID
- Free, forthcoming Ad Platform and premium features, funded mainly by founder
- Only partially open-source
- Encryption: MTProto
Telegram falls somewhere in the middle of the privacy scale, and it stands apart from other messenger apps because of its efforts to create a social network-style environment. While it doesn't collect as much data as WhatsApp, it also doesn't offer encrypted group calls like WhatsApp, nor as much user data privacy and company transparency as Signal. Data collected by Telegram that could be linked to you includes your name, phone number, contact list and user ID.
Telegram also
collects your IP address, something else Signal doesn't do. And unlike Signal and WhatsApp, Telegram's one-to-one messages aren't encrypted by default. Rather, you have to turn them on in the app's settings. Telegram group messages also aren't encrypted. Researchers found that while some of Telegram's MTProto encryption scheme was open-source,
some portions were not, so it's not completely clear what happens to your texts once they're in Telegram's servers.
Telegram has seen several breaches. Some
42 million Telegram user IDs and phone numbers were exposed in March of 2020, thought to be the work of Iranian government officials. It would be the second massive breach linked to Iran, after
15 million Iranian users were exposed in 2016. A Telegram bug was
exploited by Chinese authorities in 2019 during the Hong Kong protests. Then there was the
deep-fake bot on Telegram that has been allowed to create forged nudes of women from regular pictures.
Most recently, its GPS-enabled feature allowing you to find others near you has created
obvious problems for privacy.
I reached out to Telegram to find out whether there were any major security plans in the works for the app, and what its security priorities were after this latest user surge. I'll update this story when I hear back.
WHATSAPP
- Data linked to you: Too much to list (see below)
- Free, ads, premium versions available, funded by Facebook
- Not open-source, except for encryption
- Encryption: Signal Protocol
Let's be clear: There's a difference between security and privacy. Security is about safeguarding your data against unauthorized access, and privacy is about safeguarding your identity regardless of who has access to that data.
On the security front, WhatsApp's encryption is the same as Signal's. . . WhatsApp's actual app and other infrastructure have also faced hacks, just as Telegram has.
Jeff Bezos' phone was
famously hacked in January of 2020 through a WhatsApp video message. In December of the same year, Texas' attorney general alleged -- though
has not proven -- that Facebook and Google struck a back-room deal to reveal WhatsApp message content. A spyware vendor targeted a WhatsApp vulnerability with its software
to hack 1,400 devices, resulting in a lawsuit from Facebook. WhatsApp's
unencrypted cloud-based backup feature has long been
considered a security risk by privacy experts and was one way the FBI got evidence on
notorious political fixer Paul Manafort. To top it off, WhatsApp has also become known as a haven for scam artists and malware purveyors
over the years
Despite the hacks, it's not the security aspect that concerns me about WhatsApp as much as the
privacy.
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"While most people use WhatsApp just to chat with friends and family, we've also begun to offer...