Wickr vs Signal Settled? (Article)

So obviously communicating on a personal phone is a huge OPSEC risk and 99.999% of everyone using DNMs should (doesn't mean everyone will) keep their mouths shut about it especially in texts/anything permanent or traceable. But here is an article saying that Signal wins over Wickr. I mean who's to say how credible this columnist is and is what they're saying 100% trustworthy. Spoiler. Don't trust anything. But wait you can't lie on the internet! (see: sarcasm)

Anyways. So the article favors Signal over Wickr due to its straightforward interface and its open source which make it "trustowrthy" which is the case somewhat, but like they also say (in another article I read) "don't ever put full trust in a third party app."

I am by no means berating Wickr users or trying to start a fight (discussion is welcome of course), just thought it would be interesting to share if it hasn't been already.

The article addresses another post I saw where there was heated discussion saying "Well in a recent bust, those busted were using Signal" to which another user replied "That's only because the phones were seized and the texts were not deleted" So in the end Wickr has the nice auto-delete feature, but Signal otherwise seems the wiser option. Cheers

edit:did not mention any other messaging services since they were not brought up in the article. Obviously there's safer ways to communicate, but the two (besides ProtonMail that was mentioned) that were mentioned in the article are the ones most commonly disputed against each other I feel like.


Comments


[7 Points] OGIDGT:

Signal is better then Wickr. This isn't news. It's been established. Why would you trust an app like Wickr? They are closed sourced. Idc if they say they have military grade encryption, lets see it.


[4 Points] StrangeImpurities:

poof


[3 Points] None:

[deleted]


[3 Points] CookyDough:

https://www.eff.org/node/82654

TL;DR: Wickr's code is not "open to independent review" and the "security design" is not "properly documented." These things are not true of Signal, so Signal wins.

Also good:


[1 Points] None:

A better comparison of the two best mobile messenger apps.

I also recommend you read this article.


[1 Points] None:

I've been using Wickr (which I like a lot), but I'm actually a novice iOS developer. I've been working on a few personal projects, but maybe a new messaging app could be worth it.

When I went through my learning, I've build a couple messaging apps before, but nothing with encryption. Maybe it's worth the effort to look into. As someone who uses these types of services, I'd have a vested interest.


[-1 Points] Neosuko:

I would say the best option is to use proton mail or other means to exchange pgp keys regularly cycled out and use wickr for texting pgp messages while using signal for calls. Signal can't auto delete which is a feature of wickr and if you use pgp over wickr then even if they wanted to wickr can't read anything. And people can't recover it after its deleted automatically