Is Your Messaging Truly Anonymous?

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Journalists, environmental activists, citizens of oppressive governments, and political opposition leaders. What do all of these have in common? They all face real danger by expressing their opinions. Over the past year, we’ve seen a crisis hitting freedom of speech. With most social networks owned by private corporations, they reserve the full right to monitor and police all content published on their services. However, the problem is that even if your government fully respects freedom of speech, private companies do not have to.

This created an environment where discussing certain topics is taboo and can cause your account to be suspended temporarily or even permanently banned. People have resorted to communication apps that utilize end-to-end encryption. Though with their usage of your data to serve you personalized advertisements, they’re hardly privacy-oriented. Let’s discuss what options users have that can allow them to communicate freely without fear of prosecution or even physical harm.

The spark that lit a wildfire: Widely-adopted censorship

As we open Pandora’s box, it’s important to understand censorship. According to Britannica, censorship is the changing, suppression, or prohibition of speech or writing that is deemed subversive of the common good. Sounds almost honorable, doesn’t it? We need to clarify a few things. First of all, what exactly is the “common good”? Let’s take a look at the ACLU definition of censorship, and we may get a better idea of what the common good really means. Censorship, the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are “offensive,” happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their personal political or moral values on others. Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups.

Censorship by the government is unconstitutional. After one look, we can come to the conclusion that censorship can be interpreted as a tool to silence descendants. The common good is purely concerning reaching political goals, that’s all. While government-imposed censorship is unconstitutional, the majority of political & social conversations are held on social networks, all of which have previously imposed censorship rules based on instructions provided by the US government, and we’ve heard it from officials themselves; it’s no secret.

One example we can bring up is Mark Zuckerburg’s interview with Joe Rogan, during which he stated that they have received warnings from the FBI when claims were uncovered regarding an abandoned laptop belonging to the US president’s son, Hunter Biden, containing extremely concerning materials that could have negatively affected Joseph Biden’s presidential campaign. The FBI claimed that there was no truth to these ‘rumors’, which turned out to be factual. Government-imposed censorship through private companies is the modern way to silence opposing opinions, and the US has mastered this technically-legal censorship method.

They’ve been actively involved with a large number of corporations, from Google & YouTube to Twitter & Facebook, and they’ve all been heavily involved with the Federal government to control common narratives across countless communities. This would be the perfect time to let you know that Google’s Keyword planner doesn’t allow you to view any data when searching for the word “Censorship”. They’re censoring data on the word “Censorship” if that’s not irony at its best, I don’t know what is.

And while the Russo-Ukrainian war showed us a ton of awfulness, one of which is the US Government’s ability to control, silence, and threaten politically opposing opinions. While you may say the purpose is to stop false propaganda spread, the US has been the leading nation in pushing propaganda successfully. In fact, they have it down to a science. This isn’t just a theory, as this can be backed by charts and figures. Before the Russo-Ukrainian war, Google trends showed interest in ProtonMail to be at 0, and as soon as the special military operation was announced, that figure instantly rose to 53; the last time this figure showed up was two years prior, demonstrating a real increase in users’ need for a private Email solution.

What options are available to you?

There is an influx of messengers claiming to respect your privacy. However, once you dig deeper, you’ll find out that they still process your data for their own purposes. If you were a specific messenger and have access to user data, then you may receive threats from a certain government regarding banning WhatsApp if you weren’t willing to provide them with the information they ask for, you’ll have no choice but to provide them with everything they need. Otherwise, you risk losing millions of users in the span of minutes, as governments have the power to eliminate completely from a major market.

With that being said, let’s take a look at the currently available options. We’ll be focusing on their utility for people who face threats of prosecution or physical harm as a result of their expression of opinions, meaning journalists, oppressed groups, political opposition leaders, and refugees. Let’s kick it off with Messenger Apps

WhatsApp Messenger

Starting with WhatsApp, you may ignore that disclaimer regarding end-to-end encryption. While this protects your data from being seen by third parties, this doesn’t mean that WhatsApp does not view, process, and use your personal information. While this may not seem like a problem right now, let’s not forget that Facebook has worked closely with the FBI on multiple occasions, meaning that they could hand over information regarding your location, conversations, and more, if the FBI were to ask for that information.

Not to mention, Facebook Inc was fined 225 million Euro for failing to be transparent about how it handled personal information, it’s first fine under the European Union data protection law. This resulted from WhatsApp explaining how it processed users’ and non-users data and how it was shared between WhatsApp and other Facebook companies. This rules WhatsApp out as an option if you’re looking for a private messaging app, as WhatsApp’s security leaves more to be desired.

Facebook Messenger

Back in the good old days, Facebook was a common platform for organizing protests or discussing sociological problems. The only problem is that Facebook has had a bad reputation with regard to what data they collect about you and what they use it for. One of the signs indicating Facebook’s active data collection is how fast your battery drains when using their messenger. This may mean they’re collecting your location and other data, with the only working solution being to uninstall the app from your phone.

The second problem is the user experience. Previously, there was only one Facebook App. These were simpler times! Your Facebook messages reside in your Facebook App. After they split the two applications so that your messages were in a Facebook Messenger, users couldn’t justify having two apps that should have been one in the first place, resulting in some looking for other alternatives. Then there is the fact that they rarely decline to hand over data to law enforcement agencies, so beware of what you share with the company if your life’s on the line.

ProtonMail

We’ve already touched briefly on Protonmail, so it’s important to explore this option in more detail, so what is Protonmail? It is an email service based in Switzerland that claims to allow users to send anonymous emails. Unlike Gmail and other email providers, they don’t log IP addresses or collect your information, making it a much better option for privacy-oriented users, as all your emails are encrypted on your end, which results in you have better peace of mind when sending and receiving sensitive information that can put your well-being at jeopardy. The idea is to provide you with an email service that respects data privacy. Things, however, aren’t as simple as they seem. Protonmail — in late 2021 — was in the middle of a social media storm when a police report uncovered that ProtonMail shared a user’s IP address with French law enforcement, leading to the arrest of the climate activist. ProtonMail guaranteed that “by default”, would not store any IP addresses that could be linked to users’ email accounts, so it was incredibly problematic when they handed over that exact information to help with the arrest of a climate activist. Even worse, this type of user would need a service like ProtonMail to express their opinions without fear of prosecution freely.

With this in mind, it’s clear to see that ProtonMail isn’t any different from any other mail-hosting services, as they can log your IP address, and once they’re served with a subpoena, there isn’t much they can do to protect you. So far, we’ve failed to spot any real options providing truly anonymous alternatives to the mainstream messaging apps, as even ProtonMail doesn’t seem to provide you with an anonymous email account.

Telegram is known as one of the most secure messengers around. Every time I’m asked which messenger someone should use, I automatically respond with Telegram. However, if you were a political activist or a person needing truly anonymous messaging, you may need to look for other options. Why is that the case? Isn’t Telegram secure? Don’t encrypt all your messages? Is there not a Telegram secret chat function? Yes, Telegram is more secure than other messengers. But it’s not the end-all solution. Believe it or not, Telegram has also previously shared information with government agencies.

In mid-2022, Telegram found itself in hot water for sharing a user’s data with law enforcement agencies. A recent investigation in Germany claims that Telegram is actively sharing user data with government agencies and also censoring content. The report conducted by Der Spiegel argues that Telegram has an active and ongoing data-sharing relationship with the country’s Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt or BKA). Der Spiegel claims there are “several cases” of Telegram sharing user data with authorities. This means that data encryption doesn’t matter, as the messaging app will eventually comply and share your data with law enforcement agencies if they are pressured to do so.

This almost leaves us with no options, though that isn’t the case. There is an emerging concept that can be the option we’re looking for. An option that is open source, transparent, and secure. One that doesn’t use buzzwords like ‘message encryption’ to prove that the platform is secure, so let’s dig a bit deeper.

Enter decentralization: DeComm

DeComm is short for Decentralized Communication and aims to bring true WEB3 Messengers, WEB3 Email, and Anonymous text messaging to reality. Decentralized Communication enables natively interoperable communication services that are able to trustfully use peer-to-peer connections without having to use central authorities or services. This proves to be a far better method of securing user communication than centralized options, as centralization provides a single point of failure. Regardless of the fact that centralized options have been a reliable option for all those years, they’re just not secure.

This is where DeComm comes in. Previously, this idea wasn’t possible as each message would be a transaction. This means that on less-than-efficient blockchains, it would cost too much for you to send and receive Emails. However, with the emergence of efficient and scalable chains (such as Everscale & Solana), this is now more than just a concept. Not to mention, since decentralization has proved to be an objectively more secure option than centralization, this would inherently give the edge to Decentralized private messaging. One available app is Qamon, which is a Mail service based on the Everscale blockchain. This service also provides end-to-end encryption, just like other messengers. Additionally, since the protocol is based on Everscale, each transaction — and therefore, message — costs 10,000% less than Ethereum, with much higher speeds as well.

Storing data on a blockchain means that even if the company was approached by law enforcement agencies, it’s just not possible to provide user-specific data. Centralized databases log users and their data, while decentralization eliminates that as an option, meaning that government agencies will have to independently build a case against the user instead of relying on their data to prosecute an environmental activist. Not to mention, Telegram is known by the majority of governments, meaning that if they find your Telegram App on your phone, it’ll be the first app examined. In this case, a less-known decentralized messenger may prove to be a more secure option as it may not even be examined by these government officials.

Now That You Know, Choose wisely.

If your communication threatens your well-being, then using a messenger assumes a lot of trusts. With all the previous cases centralized messengers have had, it’s truly difficult to trust them with your life, especially when they’re not transparent regarding what data they’re receiving, processing, and storing. Utilizing a platform built and created based on trust seems like the safest option. While this is a new concept — which is why it hasn’t been explored on a mass scale — it is bound to gain traction, especially in today’s light, where governments police what you say wherever they can. It’s time for free speech to become the social norm.

Unfortunately, centralized messengers can’t be the right place for anonymous text messaging. If enough pressure is applied, they’ll have no choice but to comply with governmental agencies and provide the data they’re asking for, leading to the arrest of users.

However, once you take control out of the company’s hands by introducing decentralized technology, you’ll see that having a truly private messenger can become a reality. Privacy for some users is just a preference, but let’s not forget about others whose lives depend on staying anonymous throughout their communication. Whether they’re environmental activists, political opposition groups, or just journalists, anonymity for some can be a matter of life or death. That is why securing a fully private and encrypted communication method is essential for their well-being.

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Originally published here.