Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Privacy minded instant messaging quest. (lemmy.ml)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

33 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi,

I'm looking for an instant messaging ( IM ) ~~apps~~ software/protocol that run on Android and computer

and meet the following requirements :

Open source !
E2EE
Messages are send in direct ! (not passing by a server)
handle group
Truly private ! ( That's the tricky part )

The closest that I've found is Briar

+can work without internet ! (bluetooth, local wifi, files !)
+ use TOR
- Mutual party have to exchange key (or your can introduce someone)
- sending media suck for now, poor image quality
- no call or voice messaging

I've been looking for alternatives:

~~Session~~
- Sadly it keep ALL the conversation into server !!! so it's a no go.
speek
- I didn't try it yet, any feedback ?
simplex
- it look very promising ! (didn't tried it yet)
- + seem to handle multiple profile in one !
- + do not require that both party send an invitation !
  - and have also a optional long term address
- ~~! I didn't found (yet) if the messages are send in direct or pass by a server..~~
  It's not P2P all the messages pass by servers.. too bad.

All post about alternatives or experience with the one that I cited are welcome.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The "truly private" req really smells with "I have no threat model and don't know what am I doing"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah. What does privacy mean?

Does it mean nobody knows what you're saying? Doesn't mean nobody knows that you're talking? Doesn't mean nobody can tell two people have engaged in a conversation?

In addition to direct observations, you can make indirect inferences from many of those characteristics.

If I can observe your peer to peer traffic I know who's talking to who.

If I can observe your network, onion routing layer, I can determine who is talking to who with high probability

If I can see network traffic at all, I can determine who our members of a group, if the group messages are delivered simultaneously.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

is rare, but briar as you identified is pretty good. Though android only.

The trouble with peer to peer is it isn

theres also notification scandal recently which i think the op doesnt know about

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Though android only.

Anyway on Windows, Apple there is no sense to have a privacy apps if the OS it self pump everything it can.

And on Android it only make sense if you use an AOSP rom, or another but without the google crapware..

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It was always known, in the threat model.

Though I think everyone assumed Google required a warrant.

Even without Google, Apple's participation and push notifications - signal still has the same capability. Simply because they've created a centralized architecture.