[franharris89]

Can secure text messaging apps like Tigertext.com be read by the government or anyone else?

What about standard SMS text messages?

Is there any form of electronics communication that the government or NSA can’t read or capture?

[ghporter]

The security provided by standard SMS messaging is relatively modest; it is supposed to prevent casual eavesdroppers from intercepting your messages. Specifically "secure" messaging apps provide a far more robust encryption system that would prevent most dedicated, non-governmental entities, from reading your messages. It is unclear how deeply the various NSA "back doors" are buried in the infrastructure behind even what is considered strong public encryption. Which means that, if it's important enough, the NSA probably can eventually crack most encryption schemes used in such apps.

Now let's have some perspective. The NSA has historically had two jobs: protecting US communications from interception while making every effort to intercept and read everyone else's communications. Basically code making and code breaking. Although you can't find real data about this, it is rumored (and has been for some time) that the NSA employs more mathematicians and computer scientists than most industries... With that said, their mandate is national security, not "who's stepping out on whom," or even who's selling weed to whom.

And with all the fuss about NSA surveillance of just about every conversation on the planet, there are more such conversations than the entire population of the planet. There is no way, logistically, that there is "someone" actually "listening" to all those conversations. What is actually practical is that the data about connections within the communication infrastructure is captured, and it is then analyzed to see if those connections match certain patterns, or if they involve known end points (like specific countries or known individuals). If they find a pattern or a call actually goes to some specific known spot (let's say "Hinterland, Pakistan" which is associated with an al Quaida cell) then more effort is applied to investigate that call. This is based on something called the "computational feasibility" of investigating all those calls, not wishful thinking.

All of that basically means that if you're not calling Khalid about a big donation to his "special school" in the hills in Pakistan, it's almost certain that nobody is ever going to look at your call data, let alone "listen in." Some people don't think that's enough privacy, but it is substantially more private than having a nice, intimate conversation while walking on a public street with anyone around.

For background, I spent a whole lot of time in military communications, and I do actually know how some of that stuff works. I don't sweat my "privacy" on public switched networks (land line or cell phone), nor about my privacy with text messages. I do think there is some utility to using those encrypted apps, but more to poke at NSA than anything else.

[subego]

Threema doesn't seem bad from a security standpoint.

As far as the NSA goes, there's a reason why a court to decides whether it's okay to tap a phone and not the NSA. Extrapolate that as you will.

Also, isn't the OP spam?

[Spheric Harlot]

seems legit

[andi*pandi]

OP had questions about Tigertext 2 years ago... hmm.

[Shaddim]

Looks like low-level spam on a 2 year cycle.

[franharris89]

Thanks for the replies.

ghporter - very helpful, especially the details of why secure messaging is better then SMS.

I agree, the NSA is probably not 'listening' on every call. You did answer my question, even with encryption they could crack it if they really wanted to. But my real concern would more be to 'hackers' accessing my messages to get any ID fraud info they could, rather then the NSA.

I have been using Tigertext for about a year now (due to work in the healthcare field, since it is HIPAA compliant), and I asked the question to see if I needed to worry about anyone hacking it.

[subego]

I was going to slam you for TigerText, but it appears they've done quite the pivot from the app you use to chat with your mistress. My apologies for doubting.

It still has this wet spot of slimy residue though. I want to do a little more research.