Quit SMS Text Messages
Americans love to text, but it's the least secure form of digital messaging.. it's time to move on.
Good morning, friends! We’ve got a good one today with 684 words and about 4 minutes to read. Let’s get to it!
What am I suggesting and why?
Switch to a private, encrypted, open source messaging service Signal, and bring all your friends with you.
Regular ol’ SMS text messages just aren’t secure. They’re easily intercepted (honestly, just run a search for ‘text message interception’ and you will find dozens of how-to articles), and they’re easily spoofed (meaning someone could pretend to be you or someone you know). Using a service with end-to-end encryption means that only the sender and receiver are able to decrypt the message (basically, if someone tries to intercept your message, they would just see a garbled mess of letters and numbers).
Duration: 10 Minutes
Ease: Very easy to set up, but maybe forward this to your friends if they’re not easily convinced to leave SMS behind.
Cost: Free
You in? Let’s go:
Signal is available for Android and iOS as well as on your computer.
Follow the instructions to sign up. You can choose to share your contacts or not, but it does make it easier to determine who already uses Signal if you do.
Invite your friends, seriously.
Dig Deeper
I know that ditching text messaging is not a small ask, and I’m not suggesting you need to do it all at once. It’s a good one to tackle over time, and eventually move away from entirely.
Why Signal?
Signal tops nearly every list of private messaging apps and is used by privacy experts, journalists, protesters, and public figures worldwide. It’s funded by donations and grants, it’s open source (meaning the code that runs it can be reviewed by anyone), and their encryption service is so good, it’s actually the standard adopted by other encrypted messaging services including WhatsApp.
It also has additional privacy measures like Disappearing Messages, which is essentially the Inspector Gadget ‘this message will self destruct’ for the modern age, it disables screenshots (you can’t take a screenshot of any messages in the app), and it also has encrypted voice and video calling.
Most importantly, they do not store metadata, so there is nothing to share if a warrant is served.
Are there alternatives?
Of course, but let’s talk about a few of them.
First, the Meta Messengers…
WhatsApp is an end-to-end encrypted messaging service and on the surface shares many of the same features as Signal including Disappearing Messages (but notably excluding disabling screenshots), and even Facebook Messenger and Instagram Messenger have end-to-end encryption as an option, which when enabled opens up additional features like Disappearing/Vanishing Messages.
BUT, and this is a BIG BUT—all of these services are owned by Meta (formerly Facebook), and Meta is in the business of data collection. They not only collect ample metadata about your conversations, but will also happily share what they collect with any government agency that asks while using it themselves to sell targeted ads.
What about Apple iMessages and Android Messages?
In both cases, if everyone in the message is using the same standard (e.g. all users are on iMessage), then the messages are encrypted end-to-end. However, if one person isn’t using the same standard—like that one person with green chat bubbles in your iMessage app (note: it’s me, I’m that one)—then you’re switched back to SMS and those messages aren’t encrypted anymore.
Both Apple and Google will also be collecting huge amounts of metadata from these services, which we’ve already covered above.
Lastly, for iOS at least, there’s the issue of backups. If you use iCloud to backup your iMessages (iCloud backups are unencrypted), then those previously encrypted messages are still wide open to search and seizure.
To Google’s credit, Android’s backups actually are encrypted end-to-end, so there’s that?
Learn More
I sprinkled links all throughout that I recommend checking out to dig deeper, so I won’t list them all here, but here are a couple extras that are worth a look:
“Why You Should Stop Using Facebook Messenger After Privacy Backlash” Forbes
“Why SMS Text Messages Aren’t Private or Secure” How-to-Geek