Who owns the Signal Messaging App?

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.

 

Who owns the Signal Messaging App?

 

However, the most fundamental question that comes to mind, before we use any new software is – “who owns this product?”

Today, we are going to talk about the brains behind the Signal Messaging App, and a brief account of the humble beginnings of this potential game-changing app.

A quick search online will tell you that the Signal Messaging app is owned by the Signal Foundation, and while this may be enough for an answer, there is more to it than just a name.

The real brains behind the operation are Moxie Marlinspike and Brian Action.

Matthew Rosenfeld, aka, Moxie Marlinspike, is the creator of Signal, Co-Founder of the Signal Foundation, and also a co-author of the Signal Protocol encryption used by Signal, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Skype.

Brian Action is the executive chairman of the Signal Foundation and is also one of the co-founders of the popular messaging app, Whatsapp. He started his journey at Yahoo before he started Whatsapp. The messenger was subsequently acquired by Facebook, and that’s when Action decided to call it quits.

There are reports that at some point, Action did try to work at Facebook, but for some reason, it did not materialize.

Now, coming to the Signal project itself, it’s interesting to note that the founders knew what Signal was going to be, even before they decided on the name. The concept of cryptography was shunned out with experts claiming that it is not something theoretical, and not many people would end up using it in this age. The people at Signal, however, though different.

The idea of Signal was to make cryptography simple, and usable for individuals. They started off with a team of 7 people, with no VC funding of any kind. However, the workload soon started taking its toll, and the decision was made to expand this to an organization that would be better equipped to maintain the platform and the ever-growing user base.

The Signal Foundation started off with initial funding of $50,000,000, which eventually enabled them to dream bigger and have more resources at their disposal. Today, Signal is growing stronger and the team is committed to the project for the long run, which means the messenger that is receiving so much love, is officially here to stay.

If you want to try out the messenger for yourself, 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.