Jack Dorsey, the founder of X, recently shared a story shedding light on concerning revelations regarding Signal, a messaging app touted for its security measures. According to Dorsey, Signal’s current leadership has ties to activists backed by the US State Department, raising questions about the app’s purported secure status.
It has been disclosed that the US government spent $3 million on the development of Signal’s encryption technology, which is now used by various popular messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google Messages, and Skype, leading many to wonder whether tech companies in the US will ever be allowed to build their own encryption protocols free of government interference.
Reports have surfaced indicating that individuals have had their allegedly private Signal messages exploited against them in US courts or media. Despite Signal’s claim of transparency due to its open-source nature, concerns have been raised regarding the lack of reproducible builds for iOS, which raises doubts about the integrity of its encryption methods.
Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, stated on his app that Telegram allows researchers to verify that the code on their GitHub matches the code used in the app on users’ iPhones. This transparency, he claims, adds credibility to Telegram’s reputation as a secure messaging platform. On the other hand, WhatsApp’s failure to publish its app code, according to Durov, further casts doubt on its claims of privacy.