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Stumbled across this article yesterday:
Exclusive: Chat is Google's next big fix for Android's messaging mess
Noticed that this new standard does not do secure messaging - i.e., encryption end to end.
Noticed they mentioned 'Signal' and that iMessage was secure but not standard.
There was a recent thread here about secure email and VPN.
It occurred to me that this would be something that preppers would be interested in.
Signal is a secure messaging app that falls back to SMS when the person receiving the text does not have or use Signal. I tried it yesterday but it is not working with my phone because I have a VOIP account (Textnow) that does not do SMS - it apparently uses its own app that then goes thru a special gateway to do SMS? That is good to know - I wasn't aware of that.
That's ok - I think once I get my kids to install Signal on their phones then we can text each other securely. It has some other features that are nice - such as group convos and such.
The downside of VOIP and such apps apparently would be that they use data plans and not SMS (unless they have to fall back on it).
The benefit of SMS in an emergency is that when the cell towers are all clogged up, SMS uses a back channel to transmit text messages and text messages will get thru sometimes when other forms of comms do not as that channel is separate from voice comms and standard data. MMS (messages longer than 160 chars, pics/etc.) does not use SMS, it uses your data plan - so remember that in an emergency.
The downside is that sometimes SMS does not get thru, and you do not get read receipts whereas other protocols and apps sometimes give you read receipts - in an emergency it can be very good to know that a message got thru to someone. Having both options is good.
Exclusive: Chat is Google's next big fix for Android's messaging mess
Noticed that this new standard does not do secure messaging - i.e., encryption end to end.
Noticed they mentioned 'Signal' and that iMessage was secure but not standard.
There was a recent thread here about secure email and VPN.
It occurred to me that this would be something that preppers would be interested in.
Signal is a secure messaging app that falls back to SMS when the person receiving the text does not have or use Signal. I tried it yesterday but it is not working with my phone because I have a VOIP account (Textnow) that does not do SMS - it apparently uses its own app that then goes thru a special gateway to do SMS? That is good to know - I wasn't aware of that.
That's ok - I think once I get my kids to install Signal on their phones then we can text each other securely. It has some other features that are nice - such as group convos and such.
The downside of VOIP and such apps apparently would be that they use data plans and not SMS (unless they have to fall back on it).
The benefit of SMS in an emergency is that when the cell towers are all clogged up, SMS uses a back channel to transmit text messages and text messages will get thru sometimes when other forms of comms do not as that channel is separate from voice comms and standard data. MMS (messages longer than 160 chars, pics/etc.) does not use SMS, it uses your data plan - so remember that in an emergency.
The downside is that sometimes SMS does not get thru, and you do not get read receipts whereas other protocols and apps sometimes give you read receipts - in an emergency it can be very good to know that a message got thru to someone. Having both options is good.
