Can you find security for your messaging app?
Source: Victoria Wagner Ross
As Snowden makes a surprise video appearance at “TED’ (technology, entertainment and design) conference at the Vancouver convention center, it is the ‘Snowden’ era where everything that comes to us on our computers, tablets and smart phones is questioned for security level, reports Molly Woods on the N.Y. Times Bits today.
There are all types of secure from a lightweight can’t access your data to ‘Snowden’ level of security at ‘military grade’ and better than NSA reach. Most security apps claims are such that they are still lightweight and according to cryptographer and security expert Bruce Schneier. You don’t trust your life with the apps.
What type of security level do you need and who are you keeping out of your messages. Why do you need security?
Schneier gives a list of apps to consider at where your need lie. There is TextSecure recently returned in a new format of security. It is a private messaging app that sidesteps SMS (Short Message Service) and in its new rebirth is a WhatsApp-style, with encryption built in by default.
Gliph, a communications app that you download from the iTunes store and create your first Bitcoin secured wallet. You can attach a Blockchain.info or Coinbase wallet and pop open the Gliph app to quickly check the balance at any time. It provides encrypted messaging and email services that add up to a ‘Snowden’ approved app.
Snowden may now be familiar with Telegram, the Russian messaging app, that is so well encrypted that the uber confident creators offered a $200,000 competition prize to anyone decrypt its traffic. No one, so far has broken through the encryption.
Military grade security level for messages, photos and videos can be found on Wickr. This app is secured to a particular device which ‘self-destructs’ in Mission Impossible mystique in a real delete mode after transmittal.
‘It’s pretty stupid to text knowing that we lose control of the text once we hit send,’ says Mark Cuban, billionaire, Shark Tank investor and founder of Cyber Dust. ‘Even the most innocent text loses its context and can be misunderstood over time.’ Messages disappear forever on this app in the most secure encrypted method and it is receiving five stars on the iTunes store reviews.
Schneier believes that when you encrypt text messages you expect the level of security that you would expect from an alarm service on your home but know that it is not military level.
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