Signal issued a statement saying that the rumors about the hacking of the application were false. The company released the official announcement from Twitter, adding that they believed the talks were due to misinformation.
“We’re seeing these rumors appear in messages forwarded on several different apps,” Signal stated. “These rumors are often attributed to official government sources and read ‘attacks on Signal platform.’ This is false, and Signal is not under attack.”
The Signal application has also experienced an increase in use in various parts of Eastern Europe in the current situation between Russia and Ukraine.
Signal vs. Telegram
Moxie Marlinspike, founder and cryptographer of Signal, posted against rival app Telegram on his Twitter account.
According to the founder, he warned that Telegram poses as a secure application when it is not. All user information is in a database that Russia can easily access.
“Every msg, photo, video, doc sent/received for the past 10 yrs; all contacts, group memberships, etc. are all available to anyone w/ access to that [database].”
According to Marlinspike, another issue of concern is the Ukrainians, since many Telegram employees have family in Russia. “If Russia doesn’t want to bother w/ hacking, they can leverage family safety for access,” Marlinspike noted.
Marlinspike is not the first to announce Telegram’s lack of privacy and encryption. Finally, the researchers do not recommend using the application by journalists, activists, and whistleblowers.
Elon Musk asks, “Is This App a Safe Option?”
Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla, asked Marlinspike the following question on Twitter “Are you sure Signal is secure?.” The comment then followed, “Actual question, not rhetorical.”
Toward this, Marlinspike said the following:
“Signal is designed very differently. All communication is e2ee, so there is no cloud DB with everyone’s entire plaintext msg history in it. Groups are encrypted by default, so the only ppl who know group details are the people in them. Same w/ contacts, calls, social graph, etc.”
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