End to End Encryption on the Signal Messenger explained

A few days back, WhatsApp users around the world, were greeted with a new disclaimer claiming a change in the privacy policy, according to which, Facebook could now access almost every aspect of personal information that you share on Whatsapp. This led to a total outrage in the community, with people comp[lainign about how the app is pressurizing you to accept the terms or lose access to the platform altogether.

In the midst of all the chaos, Elon Musk put out a simple tweet that said “Use Signal”, and the revolution began. For those of you who don’t know, Signal is an instant messaging app, that has only one basic working principle – end-to-end encryption.

 

How does the end to end encryption work on the Signal Messaging app

 

Governments in most countries have made the switch to the Signal messaging app a few years ago, as it absolutely takes no data from you, which means, whatever you share, whatever you speak, is all visible only to you and the recipient. Signal has no access to what you communicate on their platform.

To confirm this fact, we opened the Signal app on the Apple App store, and under the app privacy section, what we saw is that the only piece of data that Signal can collect from you and your contact info. No media, no chat history, nothing at all.

With all this mention of an end to end encryption doing the rounds, you may be wondering as to how the Signal Messaging App actually accomplishes this feat, and in this article, we are going to explain exactly that.

When you see the term ‘End-To-End’ encryption, it generally means that when you send a message to a contact, the message is only visible to the two of you. For years, the messaging service was also privy to the conversations we were having, and this data was then used to spam us with ads that were tailored to each user based on their topics of interest, their conversations, etc.

The Signal Messaging app, however, is different. When they say an end to end encryption, they actually mean it. This means chats on Signal are only visible to the two parties in question, with Signal having no access whatsoever.

How do they do it?

The messages are encrypted using the Signal protocol, which is by far the most robust and secure protocol ever developed. It amalgamates the Extended Triple Diffie-Hellman (X3DH) key agreement protocol, Double Ratchet algorithm, pre-keys, and uses Curve25519, AES-256, and HMAC-SHA256 as cryptographic primitives.

In simple words, what this means is that even if someone were to intercept messages sent on the signal app, all they will see is gibberish. Add to this, the requirement of passcodes, and what you have is a system that is both robust and reliable, not to mention – Secure.

What might interest you to know is that other chat applications also use the Signal protocol to execute the encryption feature in their respective platforms, but none come even close to the absolute privacy that Signal offers.

Overall, the Signal Messaging app is a great choice for your primary messenger as it includes high-grade security with all the features that are currently employed in other competitor messaging apps. If you want to try out the Signal Messaging app, you can download your copy from the links given below.

Signal for Android – Click Here

Signal for iOS – Click Here

Signal for PC – Click Here