Signal: The App is Creating a Community for Data Security

Posted by Rose Molly on December 10th, 2018

Just Take out your smartphone and check the list of recently downloaded applications. Well, what do you see — Snapchat, Instagram, HQ Trivia, or some random photo-editing gibberish? But is Signal there? If it’s a no, you have messed up big time.

Despite all the cool stuff, e-shopping applications, picture editing tools that released this year, Signal is one such secure, encrypted messaging app that really is of importance over the course of 2018, where some of the biggest data attacks were exposed.

For fresher’s, Signal is a secure and free messaging application that lets its users share encrypted messages, video chats, and audio calls, between users. That's all about it. Sure, it offers a ton of immaculate features (like self-destructing messages), but one of the biggest thing that makes it extremely essential is its simplicity and how effective it is for sharing data.

If you are well-versed with iMessage, using Signal is no big deal. If you know how to send an SMS, you can easily decipher Signal.

And honestly, this is how it should be. The private and most secure way of communication, Signal, is extremely easy to use and free. No more conjecturing about who is reading the messages you’ve sent.

The best thing! "No ads, no creepy tracking, no affiliate marketers”, OpenWhisper Systems states on their website. "Just open technology for a fast, simple, and secure messaging experience."

All this is definitely a matter of great concern. As our lives are being more and exposed to the digital world, where every piece of information we readily submit (along with the one we don't) is being monitored by gigantic organizations to both track our behavior and shower us with advertisements. To put it out loud, this is the least problematic.

By enabling you to enjoy truly private communications, Signal has changed the entire equation. Wondering, why all this so important?  The year, perhaps, in particular, have seen how neutral all the tech giants are where prying eyes are using these platforms to incite violence, sowing discord. Taking our private conversations, and valuable data away from such ridiculous platforms is probably the only way to fight this.

But it doesn’t end here. The year brought up Donald Trump administration's intention to hunt down the whistleblowers. Signal, made it more difficult. Feeling like leaking any shady machinations of a corrupt official? The signal can help you with that as well.

If the government officials will come after your private conversations, Open Whisper Systems won't be of any help as according to the organization, in 2016 it "received a subpoena from the Eastern District of Virginia" needing to hand over data of two users. The only piece of information it could "generate in response to the request was the date and time when the user registered with Signal and the last date of that user’s connectivity with Signal service."

That is it. No track of who is messaging who, how frequently, or whether you texted a specific person. The signal does not hold any such information to give away.

The encrypted application offers you to share private communications, for absolutely free and needs nothing in return, which is an exceptionally rare bargain these days, along with being the one that can’t be overlooked. But, a little downside is that the person you want to communicate securely needs to have the application. However, it is not big of an issue.

If you have ever felt like leaking any sensitive information, do not worry as most of the journalists already have it! Want to message with your friends or family in your life? Just ask them to download Signal — especially when you don’t get to see them that often. They are probably trying a bunch of random apps, so what's with one more which actually makes sense and protects our security!

And, with one application, you have helped both your loved one with protecting their privacy along with yours. Isn’t that a pretty awesome deal, and shouldn’t we all be downloading it by now, while preparing ourselves for whatever daunting to come.

The encrypted messaging application is available for both iOS and Android, along with a desktop version. You should definitely use it for the sake of data privacy.