11mo ago

Deployed 82nd Airborne unit told to use these encrypted messaging apps on government cell phones - Amytimes

www.armytimes.com

Deployed 82nd Airborne unit told to use these encrypted messaging apps on government cell phones

A little old but interesting non the less

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The DoD recommended apps are Signal and Wickr .
- Surprising isn't it
  Although to be far those have both been around for a while
Remember, of course, that Wickr has been owned by Amazon since 2021.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/25/aws-is-buying-encrypted-messaging-service-wickr/
- That's probably why it is recommended by the US government. They like things they have control over.
  
  If they truly didn't care about this then they would probably mention, like, Matrix or something
- It's also funded by the CIA. Although Signal is/was also indirectly funded by US Congress via OTF, and some claim that means the CIA is somehow involved too. Of course, computers, the internet and tor also had major US government funding, for what it's worth.
~~Why not telegram?~~ I got corrected
- Because in most cases it isn't encrypted, when it is it severely reduces functionality, and it doesn't even use a crypto alg that's widely approved of by trusted crypto experts?
- I hope you are joking
  Telegram has strong ties to the US government. It isn't encrypted by default and has a closed source system.
if a hostile party has access to the handset, that encryption isn't particularly helpful
Things like Molly-FOSS might help better with that, keeping its database locked and encrypted at rest on its own separately from any OS encryption or security. Perhaps GrapheneOS or similar could be beneficial as well.
If you want something with not so many government ties, and maybe more decentralized, there is also SimpleX, Briar and Tox.
- The problem with Molly encryption is that you can't receive notifications when it is locked. That isn't a easy problem to solve but it is something to keep in mind.
  
  True but you can at least have it require biometrics to reopen the app and you can still get notifications then because the db is technically unlocked.

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