The famously encrypted calling and texting app Signal has come for Android. The free service, after being approved by even the likes of Edward Snowden, is the poster child for private calling and messaging. The way that it was implemented into Android? By combining two existing services, named TextSecure and RedPhone, and making it into Signal, which has been available for iOS since last year.
The company behind Signal is Open Whisper System, and its founder Moxie Marlinspike shares that in an effort to follow the main concept of the company, it just wanted to make things simpler. Signal code is not exclusive to its app or to the company, WhatsApp is known to use the same technology to keep texts private, which inspired a threat from British Prime Minister Dave Cameron to ban the app entirely.
Android’s Signal is likely to inspire a similar response from authorities like the FBI and the CIA, but it could also go the other way. With the spread of the app and its code, it may become vulnerable to these government agencies. Could there be a possible hole in the code as it stretches out to other platforms? Would Snowden approve of the spread of Signal, or would it have been better off sticking to one place only?
As the company grows and expands, Open Whisper Systems finds that its main concern isn’t in their code, which has been declared foolproof by analysts, technology experts and hackers alike. Their main problem is to make an app that is appealing and accessible to everyone, like apps such as WhatsApp or Viber, which are also integrating text and calling internationally and for free in their platforms.
