When President Barack Obama won, conservatives stocked up on guns and ammunition which were never taken away. Now, with big-time popular-vote loser Donald Trump headed to the White House thanks to our bullshit undemocratic system, people are stocking up on different things, such as health care, and … communication encryption tools.
By the time you finish reading this column, you would be foolish not to download the messaging app Signal onto your smartphone and computer.
The free encrypted messaging service has won the acclaim of security researchers and privacy advocates, including Edward J. Snowden. All have said that Signal goes above and beyond other chat tools in keeping electronic communications private [...]
Some people have already cottoned on to this. Signal experienced a 400 percent jump in daily downloads since Mr. Trump won the election, according to Moxie Marlinspike, who founded Open Whisper Systems, the nonprofit that developed Signal. To Mr. Marlinspike, the surge in downloads reflects anxiety among Americans about the implications of Mr. Trump’s presidency for personal privacy.
This is consumer-friendly encryption, working like any other messenger apps. So if you know how to message, you can use this app without worrying about complicated tech. In fact, the Signal tech is open source, and has been incorporated into several apps like WhatsApp and Google Messenger. But none are as secure as Signal itself.
My biggest gripe about it is the lack of a Mac desktop app, since I actually do most of my chatting on my computer. There is an extension for Chrome, but I prefer Safari, so that doesn’t work so great for me. Also, I can’t install it on both my phone and iPad, though support for multiple devices is coming soon (supposedly). On the other hand, you can even make secure encrypted voice calls on Signal, which is pretty awesome.
The security ramifications of our incoming neo-fascist president (not to mention Russian hackers, malicious Wikileaks, etc.) are severe enough that I’ll definitely be conducting my chatting and voice calls on Signal. You can download the app, which is free, here.