Re:Google collects metadata from Android phones
by nickpsecurity on Monday July 04, 2016 @12:49PM
(#12031731)
Thanks for the tips on other apps and the Android distro. Much appreciated. Far as Signal issue, I did find this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gnu/comments/4cd451/libresignal_sig...
Perhaps some more volunteers putting effort in could remedy the situation.
Re:Google collects metadata from Android phones
by dlmetcalf on Wednesday July 06, 2016 @02:47AM
(#12041563)
You're welcome. Unfortunately, LibreSignal was shut down due to: https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco....
I wouldn't pin too much hope on having a high quality PR written and integrated back to Signal soon. It doesn't look like a top priority for them. OWS also like the telemetry that Play gives them for diagnostics and have stated they won't be looking at FDroid unless someone can replace that.
Re:Google collects metadata from Android phones
by nickpsecurity on Thursday July 07, 2016 @03:23PM
(#12051556)
Thanks for the link. That conversation was a bit disturbing as I read on. Least Moxie is allowing the code to be used.
You can't use it without installing closed-source Google Apps (Play Services for GCM at minimum), and means you agree to hand over your phone metadata to Google (per the OP's top-thread). Moxie has stated he is open to consider high quality PR's to add Websocket functionality. (Removing close-source binary blobs would be a prerequisite to distributing on anything other than Google Play to though, which Moxie's also said isn't on the roadmap - I assume primarily because of resources).
In the meantime, Conversations.IM has OMEMO and Vector.IM has Olm/MegOlm.
There's not a lot of good voice options. Vector.IM's just added WebRTC, which is meant to be DTLS secured. CSipSimple does ZRTP, but it hasn't been updated in a long time.
None of the apps mentioned above has been audited and scrutinised to the extent Signal has.
If you really need privacy & security, CopperheadOS is the only Android distro AFAIAA that fits the bill at the moment.