{"id":9259,"date":"2015-11-04T07:28:47","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T13:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=9259"},"modified":"2015-11-04T07:28:47","modified_gmt":"2015-11-04T13:28:47","slug":"technology-and-privacy-signal-the-crypto-app-comes-to-android","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2015\/11\/04\/technology-and-privacy-signal-the-crypto-app-comes-to-android\/","title":{"rendered":"Technology and Privacy: Signal, the Crypto App Comes to Android"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/11\/signal.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-9260\" src=\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/11\/signal.jpg?w=620\" alt=\"signal\" width=\"620\" height=\"440\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"lede\">SINCE IT FIRST <\/span>appeared in Apple\u2019s App Store last year, the free encrypted calling and texting app Signal has become the darling of the privacy community, recommended\u2014and apparently used daily\u2014by no less than <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Snowden\/status\/661313394906161152\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Edward Snowden himself<\/a>. Now its creator is bringing that same form of ultra-simple smartphone encryption to Android.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday the privacy-focused non-profit software group Open Whisper Systems <a href=\"https:\/\/whispersystems.org\/blog\/just-signal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced<\/a> the release of Signal for Android, the first version of its combined calling and texting encryption app to hit Google\u2019s Play store. It\u2019s not actually the first time Open Whisper Systems has enabled those features on Android phones; Open Whisper Systems launched an encrypted voice app called Redphone and an encrypted texting program called TextSecure for Android back in 2010. But now the two have been combined into a Signal\u2019s single, simple app, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/2014\/07\/free-encrypted-calling-finally-comes-to-the-iphone\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">just as they are on the iPhone<\/a>. \u201cMostly this was just about complexity. It\u2019s easier to get people to install one app than two,\u201d says Moxie Marlinspike, Open Whisper Systems\u2019 founder. \u201cWe\u2019re taking some existing things and merging them together to make the experience a little nicer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That streamlining of Redphone and TextSecure into a single app, in other words, doesn\u2019t actually make Open Whisper System\u2019s encryption tools available to anyone who couldn\u2019t already access them. But it does represent a milestone in those privacy programs\u2019 idiot-proof interface, which in Signal is just as straightforward as normal calling and texting. As Marlinspike noted when he spoke to WIRED about Signal\u2019s initial release last year, that usability is just as important to him as the strength of Signal\u2019s privacy protections. \u201cIn many ways the crypto is the easy part,\u201d Marlinspike said at the time. \u201cThe hard part is developing a product that people are actually going to use and want to use. That\u2019s where most of our effort goes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read the Remainder at <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/2015\/11\/signals-snowden-approved-phone-crypto-app-comes-to-android\/?mbid=nl_11315\">Wired<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SINCE IT FIRST appeared in Apple\u2019s App Store last year, the free encrypted calling and texting app Signal has become the darling of the privacy community, recommended\u2014and apparently used daily\u2014by no less than Edward Snowden himself. Now its creator is bringing that same form of ultra-simple smartphone encryption to Android. On Monday the privacy-focused non-profit&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[74,1317,1814,1725,1132,65,10],"tags":[242,2833,2338,2834,2835,2836,2837,2838],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9259"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}