Among trending software news headlines this week is the spike in downloads of encrypted messaging apps. According to the Epoch Times, the app Signal jumped 926 slots on the list of top downloads to #1, followed closely by Telegram. High-profile Signal users include Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistleblower, and business maven (and richest man in the world) Elon Musk.
Few of us sanguinely comfortable with the fact that our communications aren’t really all that private. With the alarming extent of governmental and Big Tech surveillance now becoming common knowledge, most internet users are, at the very least, interested in carving out a private little niche of their own in their online lives, particularly in the areas of email and messaging.
But how private can our electronic communications truly be? Are there other ways for data miners to claw useful information from even encrypted-end-to-end messaging? Rob Braxman offers his perspective.
Some are quick to promote apps as being safe for your use just because they are encrypted. I will talk about how many of the popular apps that are commonly thought to be safe because of encryption are actually wrought with danger because pundits who claim this knowledge haven’t really thought about the flaws of each of these apps.
The main flaw is something called a relationship map. Because of the meta data surrounding the use of each of these apps, this flaw can result in complete identification of all parties involved in a conversation and their profiles. I will explain how this occurs and how understanding how this works is part of what the intelligence community calls SIGINT (Signals Intelligence).
