General > General Technical Chat
Delete WhatsApp, use Signal Private Messenger instead
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RenThraysk:

--- Quote from: Gyro on January 11, 2021, 12:21:44 pm ---Signal seems to want a hell of a lot of permissions compared to VSee. Just saying.


P.S. Ah, yes, it does support iPhone / iPad / Mac

--- End quote ---

As a software developer with a keen interest in cryptography, VSee looks like something to avoid.

From https://vsee.com/messenger/

"Encrypted with military-grade 256-bit AES encryption"

There is no such thing as military grade encryption. The encryption either works (protects data for a reasonable long period of time against an well funded adversary) or an enthusiastic teenager with a Raspberry PI can crack.

256-bit AES encryption is a symmetrical encryption algorithm, sure. But these days is rarely the source of security issues, as quality code is available or implemented partially in hardware such as x86 AESNI instruction set, or ARM's Cryptographic extensions. It's all the other stuff dealing with keys, public key encryption, cryptographic hashing* and how they are all used together that causes problems.

The electronics equivalent of this would be announcing your military grade power-on indicator LED will light up when power is connected, so the rest of circuit in the product is completely issue free.

I cannot see any mention of forward secrecy. This is the feature which makes Signal's end to end encryption scheme more secure than anything before it.

Use Signal.

* Telegram's MTProto version 1.0 got this wrong, used a cryptographic hashing function (SHA1) nearing the end of it's useful life. This choice alone is reason enough not to recommend Telegram, even though it was later corrected in MTProto version 2.0 to SHA256.
SVFeingold:

--- Quote from: RenThraysk on January 11, 2021, 04:01:36 pm ---
"Encrypted with military-grade 256-bit AES encryption"

There is no such thing as military grade encryption. The encryption either works (protects data for a reasonable long period of time against an well funded adversary) or an enthusiastic teenager with a Raspberry PI can crack.

--- End quote ---

This is standard marketing fluff. Pretty much every company does it. "Aerospace grade," "military grade." True, most people have no idea what those things mean (if anything). They just sound cool, so companies say it. I don't see how you take that to mean that it must not be reliable, unless there is some other info to that effect.

Try to take a moral stand against all sigh-inducing bullshit marketing language and you'll pretty much end up in a shack in the woods.
RenThraysk:

--- Quote from: SVFeingold on January 11, 2021, 04:28:56 pm ---This is standard marketing fluff. Pretty much every company does it. "Aerospace grade," "military grade." True, most people have no idea what those things mean (if anything). They just sound cool, so companies say it. I don't see how you take that to mean that it must not be reliable, unless there is some other info to that effect.

Try to take a moral stand against all sigh-inducing bullshit marketing language and you'll pretty much end up in a shack in the woods.

--- End quote ---

Signal doesn't make nonsense claims.

It's also quite important to point out it's bullshit, as there are ignorant politicians trying to decrease security based on the marketing language.

"Attorney General William P. Barr said on Tuesday that technology companies should stop using advanced encryption and other security measures..."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/us/politics/william-barr-encryption-security.html

"advanced encryption"
duckduck:
Been using Signal since it came out. It was a bit bare bones for a while there but they have added a ton of new features in the past year or two. Love it.
Gyro:
Ok, they may use some marketing speak but VSee is also approved by the US Congress for use behind its firewalls, so its security can't be that bad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSee

Also, clearly documented Security and privacy statements, Signal's are more in the form of 'how do I know it's private' type articles.

https://vsee.com/hipaa
https://vsee.com/privacy

Signal may or may not be better, but it seems silly to totally write something off based on some marketing fluff about AES-256 being Military grade.

BTW, I did install Signal last night but wasn't keen on the UI.
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