What are the Security reasons behind switching from WhatsApp to Signal? – Guide
WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps in India, but the company has recently come under fire for its new privacy policy. Several people switched to Signal for privacy reasons, even as WhatsApp reiterated that all chats are encrypted and cannot be accessed by it or Facebook. Signal is a private messaging app that not only offers end-to-end encryption but also offers privacy focus features and collects minimal user data. Signal is seeing a huge influx of users switching from WhatsApp as users protest WhatsApp’s new privacy policies, a move that also received a significant boost when Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted “Use Signal” .
WhatsApp is a messaging app that takes a step up its security game, rolling out end-to-end encryption to its 700 million users earlier this year. Open Whisper System’s Signal is relatively new to the game, but it has won over many security-conscious fans due to its great encryption.
WhatsApp does not encrypt metadata
Metadata describes other data, such as images and articles. It can provide information about the image’s size, color depth, resolution, and when it was created.
Message metadata is data about the actual text message, which may include the sender’s name, phone number, recipient phone message number, date and time. At first glance, discarding message metadata seems easy as it may seem trivial. But make no mistake: using metadata, researchers can create a network that describes who and when the person is communicating. For example, in 2013, Microsoft’s research team published a paper describing a system for recognizing your age, gender, and sexuality based solely on the things you like on Facebook. Pretty scary, right? ..
WhatsApp shares the message metadata with law enforcement, including the date, time, and contact information of the sender and recipient. Signal encrypts this metadata to protect users’ privacy. ..
WhatsApp does not have in-app encryption
WhatsApp is enabling end-to-end encryption for messages sent over the internet, but lost a basic functionality – no encryption for messages stored on your WhatsApp. phone. So what’s the use of encrypting messages over the network if someone steals your device without a password? Of course, you can go through all your messages. To combat this, Signal encourages you to define up your own password. Then all text messages on Signal are encrypted with your password before being stored locally. You can also choose to automatically block Signal after a certain period of time.
WhatsApp online backups are not encrypted
Since WhatsApp messages are stored on Google Drive, if your phone is lost or stolen, you could lose all of your messages and data. This is a big security risk because if someone gets your Google Drive, they could access all of your messages and data.
If your Gmail account gets hacked, or Google has to serve a warrant, remember that all your conversations will be exposed. But that is not all. Even if you turned off online backups, but the other person you’re talking to turned them on, you’ll also log out. You know that moment when you have to suffer for the mistakes of others? Yes, this is a moment. Signal handles this problem well and doesn’t offer a feature backup option. It only includes a plain text manual backup/restore option if you need it. This may not be the most convenient option, but in final it all boils down to one thing: features vs. safety.
WhatsApp is proprietary (and owned by Facebook!)
WhatsApp and Signal are two of the most popular messaging apps in the world. However, their encryption features are only one side of the story. The other is how they have been integrated with closed-source software like WhatsApp. It is nearly impossible to inspect the code and see how the encryption has been integrated. On the other hand, Signal’s codebase is open source and can be analyzed by researchers to determine if security measures are properly applied.
WhatsApp is sharing some of its user data with Facebook, which is why people may have opted out of the company’s data sharing program during the 30-day period. If you did not opt out, some of your WhatsApp user data was shared with Facebook.
Signal has better security-focused settings
Signal has two small but useful security features. The first is Disappearing Messages, which keeps your messages from being seen by anyone other than the sender and recipient. The second is “Screen Security”, which prevents anyone from taking a screenshot of your conversation. Obviously, these features aren’t foolproof – someone could still take a screenshot of another phone – but they’re helpful nonetheless. ..
Final note
WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps in the world, with over 1.5 billion active users. However, it has been criticized for its lack of security features compared to Signal, a messaging app that was created by Open Whisper Systems. Here are some reasons why you might want to switch to Signal:
- Signal has end-to-end encryption, meaning that messages and data are protected from interception and spying. This is important because WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, which has been accused of using its power to spy on its users.
- Signal also has a number of other security features, such as message authentication codes (MACs), which help ensure that messages have not been tampered with in transit.
- Finally, both apps have a number of other features that make them more versatile and user-friendly than WhatsApp. For example, Signal can be used as a phone call app, while WhatsApp can only be used for messaging. ..
