14 DAY TRIAL // The second version of Signal, Open Whisper Systems’ iOS solution for end-to-end encrypted communication, has been released and it adds support for private messaging with Android clients.
Founded in 2013, Open Whisper Systems was created by Moxie Marlinspike, former head of security at Twitter, and is an open-source project with a large community behind it; the organization’s development efforts for private communication apps are sustained through donations and grants.
Cross-platform end-to-end encryption
Signal 2.0 includes cross-platform encrypted communication by adding support for the TextSecure messaging app for Android devices, which has more than 500,000 installations. The message exchange is completely free of charge as it does not rely on SMS and MMS.
By bridging the two apps, Open Whisper Systems offers users the possibility to swap text and video messages in a private manner, as the information is encrypted and decrypted locally with the key being stored on the device only.
As such, deciphering the information in transit would be possible only if the encryption algorithms are broken. The TextSecure protocol relies on Curve25519, AES-256, and HMAC-SHA256, which are integrated in numerous other apps and are considered secure encryption algorithms.
The privacy of the conversations in both Signal and TextSecure is ensured through perfect forward secrecy, a feature in public-key cryptography that allows generation of unique, temporary keys for encrypting every message. This way, if one of the keys is compromised, the attacker would have access only to a few lines of text, but not the entire conversation.
Signal is also compatible with RedPhone voice app
Signal does not require users to log in, and it uses the phone number assigned to the device and the address book available.
The second version of the app is also compatible with RedPhone, an Android app created by the same Open Whisper Systems developers which focuses on encrypted voice calls.
The organization revealed Signal 2.0 on Monday, advertising a “frictionless interface” for private phone calls and messaging.