The fluidity and importance of Secure Messaging and Communication
When a person is shadow banned, blocked from participating in online conversations and in society, and even deplatformed on Social Medias, you think that is very bad. Can it get worse? That same person then claims his emails are under surveillance and worse, some not delivered to either side of recipients. Such situations always trigger questions, and his computer seems under constant attacks in order to monitor his/her activities. Again this same person now talks about Secure Messaging and Communication to protect his life (at least what is left of it), and sanity, and his little assets left to him. Guess what people then start thinking - "what does he have to hide?".
In my case the answer is "Nothing!".
For the record, I never was member in a political party, nor have I worked for political organization's anywhere. Also was I never in the army of my country nor foreign countries, never worked for any police forces, security agencies, Spy organizations and/or any 3,4,5 letter type of entities, or internal security. I am not even member of a sport club as we say in Switzerland when indicating you are nowhere attached and live a free life. I don’t do drugs, don’t smoke, don’t drink, eat vegetarian, and do plenty of running (Trail and Ultra). Last but not least, I am not a convicted criminal. I am just a fucking normal citizen.
Since many years I'm on the search for the best way doing Secure Messaging and Communication. It is indeed not easy and what is great today can change tomorrow as technologies to penetrate secure messaging have improved. The reasons to implement secure messaging are many. Examples are - you are working in an executive position and deal with sensitive corporate data. You lead or are part of a R&D team that must prevent data from being leaked to your competitors as this could cost billions of dollars for that company. For sure you opt for secure messaging when you investigate wrong doings - and even crimes committed in the community, politics, economy, law enforcement you name it. In my case the reasons is a 30+ year old story where I lost my business and my families wealth was decapitated - something we can't recover anymore. Over those years my emails and social media accounts have being subjected to attacks to prevent us from expanding our reach with the hope of finding justice. They trashed my social and business network in order for me being helpless exposed to further attacks and to disable me in seeking help by others and making those crimes public. They have being very successful so far - not 100% but successful.
Times have changed.
So have the opportunities and tools. Time is actually good for those who are in need of more privacy - for what ever reason. I will reveal here a bit how I handle secure communication. Maybe there is one or the other point you can learn and copy for your own needs. You sure will understand when I’m not revealing my “ultimate secure communication” method in order not to compromise it. In my case a life saving thing.
The way we communicate today is mainly on a very centralized base. Just look at your social media connections and emails. Once you register for an email and possess a mobile number (that just everybody needs today) the base is set to be registered in a centralized system. And here it goes; join ANY social media - you need at least an email or a mobile number or both. You register for a Newsletter - you will provide at least your email if not also your mobile. You sign up for a second email and they will ask you if you have another email (your first one) as "a backup". Just anywhere you sign up you leave (usually) that one mobile and/or that one email you have. All those places you now have signed up are stored primarily in one or two places. Usually, as it's known today, Google and Facebook are the biggest collectors of you're personal data such as mobile number, emails, and connections (for profit reasons primarily but not only). Those parts of data we refer to Meta Data. There are a few other elements like date, time, IP, sometimes MAC addresses and with whom you communicate. Just as a side note, there are also state agencies that collect vast amount of data from users. But that is a different story and I will not cover it here and now.
Have you being using WhatsApp, LINE, Facebook, Instagram, and FB messenger, you then have put your life into the hand of people you have no idea who they are. And that is bad. You think you share your private data with your connections - what you are doing Yes, but you still put all data into the hands of those unknown people. You may say "when you have nothing to hid you have nothing to fear!" You sure heard this slogan before - right?. Well, I can tell you that this slogan is just made up to put "sand into your eyes and brain" that will blind you into believing "all is fine when using those Mainstream Social Media (MsSM) tools. I have an over 30 years of experiences made where, despite "I have noting to hide" my online life was decimated several times. Believing in the good and openness is not helpful to counter such bad people. If someone is dedicated to harm others, no matter what you’re doing, they will push to reach their goal. This said, the only thing that works for you is using the right tools so you can go decentralized, hide your communications from the public and come closest to a true private based. BTW, this also includes looking at the Hardware you are using.
So how to go about? First step is, that you must be willing to give up (at least) part of your comfort using MsSM. Second, your social network will change and will probably also be a little smaller. That does not mean you communicate less, but by experience you will interact at a much more interesting and knowledgeable level with others. Those can help you bring you to the next (secure/decentralized) level. But I'm also aware that living without MsSM is (at least for some) a bad take. Let's assume LINE as example; I have to use LINE to communicate with some people. Why would they not change? Is it that comfort they don't want to let go? I really don't know! There is another reason why probably people don't want to change their communication to a more decentralized and secure environment - The Directory. We have to admit that having a centralized communication allows us to access a vast directory. Just think of Twitter and FB, LinkedIn and the like. You can find maybe anyone you are looking for.
That is why I associate my contacts into security levels I have created. Each security level has it's particular communication tool that can consist of email and a messenger, and who knows something different that is outside usual habit. Depending on your needs - we ordinary folks - we probably will have anywhere between 2 and 4 levels. And depending your personality, you could have even more. But that is rather unrealistic for you and me. Remember, the more levels you have the more inconvenient it gets and probably even irritating. So keep it simple with a clear goal.
Here an example how that could look like.
Level 1: (low level privacy) - Apps; LINE, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Telegram etc - those who are really unwilling and/or unable to change to another tool. With those you should communicate “only” very basic stuff and nothing personal and/or security related matter. Also you should not hand out your real name, real location to those you talk.
Level 2: Telegram (closed group) - If you can convince Level-1 users you will quickly notice a difference.
Level 3: Telegram (secure chat), Wire, Session, Signal - have a high level of privacy and confidentiality.
Level 4: NOTE this level for me is a special case that I am not going to speak and/or write how it's done and the technology used.
Keep the following in mind; usually it's fine to speak about communications tools used. But if you are a special case where you have to fear for your security, then I suggest you keep even this close to you and no one shall know about the details (except those involved in this line of communication). I'm speaking here from a made experience, where in 2019/2020 my mobile phone was targeted and data corrupted so I could not use it anymore. That mistake I clearly won't repeat. Therefore any info of my Level 4 is out of reach for everyone. That has proven so far of being very useful and working as those bad folks don’t know the entry point to my communication. This includes, what time of the day am I communicating with the other side, am I using a SIM or WiFi or other means to connect to the internet, Hardware used, Communication tools used, For sure use a VPN, etc etc. You see where I’m going to right? So your ultimate level is your ultimate life saver.
As a conclusion we can say that secure communication is fluid. All this said, I’m aware that what works well today could be obsolete tomorrow. This topic requires from you to constantly monitor and update yourself on the changes on the market and review your settings 2-3 times per year. If you fail on this you will fail on securing your privacy.
Note; I will a bit later from now write my take on the differences of today's secure communications apps. This will then help you making your decisions which app is more suitable for your levels of secure communication. Please follow and subscribe to this post in order to be updated automatically.