Meredith Whittaker on online security

Username Privacy

Unlike other messaging apps, Signal cannot easily see or produce the usernames of given accounts.
Usernames in Signal are protected using a custom Ristretto 25519 hashing algorithm and zero-knowledge proofs.

Link Previews and Privacy

Some messaging apps handle link previews in a highly insecure manner.
Instead of generating the link preview locally on the user’s own device, these apps choose to send links to a hosted service and generate the link preview remotely instead.
This puts the remote link preview service in a position where it can see and potentially monitor which links people are sharing, who is sharing them, and when they were shared.

Telegram Link Previews

Link Previews in Telegram are always generated remotely on Telegram’s servers.
Telegram provides an option to completely disable Link Previews in Secret Chats. If this setting isn’t disabled, even URLs and websites that are exchanged in end-to-end encrypted chats are leaked to Telegram’s servers.
- iOS: Telegram Settings > Privacy and Security > Data Settings > Link Previews
- Android: Telegram Settings > Privacy and Security > Link Previews

WhatsApp Multi-Device Support

WhatsApp Desktop is available for macOS and Windows.
WhatsApp Web can run in the web browser on other platforms.
- The WhatsApp Code Verify web browser extension must be installed in order to mitigate possible man-in-the-middle attacks.

Telegram Multi-Device Support

Only “Cloud Chats” (which are not end-to-end encrypted) remain in sync across mobile and desktop.
Telegram Secret Chats are not synchronized across devices.

Telegram Reactions

Reactions are completely disabled in Telegram’s optional end-to-end encrypted Secret Chats.

Telegram Voice Notes

Voice notes outside of Secret Chats are not end-to-end encrypted.
Telegram Premium users can access a Voice-to-Text Conversion feature.
- These transcriptions are generated remotely (and therefore insecurely) on Telegram’s servers using their voice message transcription API.

Telegram Call Verification

Telegram users need to look at a “key visualization” and manually verify four emoji characters at the beginning of every call.
- If this step is ever skipped, that conversation is at risk of being intercepted by a man-in-the-middle attack.
One-on-one video calls in Telegram have only been end-to-end encrypted since August 2020.

Google Messages Multi-Device Support

Messages for Web can relay messages between a phone and a web browser.
- No browser extension is available to verify the evaluated code, so man-in-the-middle attacks are a possibility.
- Messages for Web supports legacy message formats (e.g. SMS and MMS) that are not end-to-end encrypted.
No desktop apps are available.

Google Messages and Calling

Google Messages doesn’t include support for voice and video calls.
Google Meet is a separate application that can optionally be installed on the same phone.
- End-to-end encryption for voice and video calls can be enabled in Google Meet under certain conditions.

Google Messages End-to-end Encryption

End-to-end encryption is only enabled for Rich Communication Services (RCS) chats, and only if everyone in the conversation is also using the Google Messages app.
- End-to-end encryption is not enabled when exchanging messages with other RCS apps (e.g. Samsung Messages).
Legacy message formats like SMS and MMS are not end-to-end encrypted.

Apple Messages End-to-end Encryption

End-to-end encryption is only enabled by default for iMessage (blue bubbles).
Legacy message formats like SMS and MMS (green bubbles) are not end-to-end encrypted.
Apple can also access end-to-end encrypted chats and reveal message contents to external parties under some circumstances.
- To prevent this, every participant in the conversation must either enable Advanced Data Protection for iCloud or completely turn off iCloud backups on all of their devices.
- More information is available in Apple’s iCloud data security overview.

Signal Group Permissions

In addition to other group attributes that are end-to-end encrypted (such as group names, group descriptions, and group avatars), the Signal service also doesn’t have access to any information about which accounts are part of a group, which accounts are admins in a group, which accounts can add new people to a group, which accounts can approve requests to join a group, or which accounts can send messages in a group.

Meredith Whittaker on online security

Meredith Whittaker on online security

More videos.

The individual in the machine: Meredith Whittaker on reclaiming privacy in the age of AI

Chema Alonso interviews Meredith Whittaker about Signal, privacy and AI

Global Solutions Talk with Udbhav Tiwari from Signal

Why online privacy is vital: Insights from messaging app Signal’s president

Signal launches polls in group chats

Signal iOS update: bug fixes, design improvements, and more

Signal Android update: improvements for split screen