For me, the spread of encrypted chat apps means that, with very few exceptions, all of my text messages - with friends, family, or for work - are end-to-end encrypted, and no one even has to understand what a “public key” is.īut there is a major issue with both Signal and WhatsApp: Your account is tied to your phone number. And probably the most popular is WhatsApp, a Facebook-owned platform with encryption setup derived from Signal.

Among the most secure is Signal, open-source software for iOS and Android that has caught on among activists, journalists, and others who do sensitive work. A number of popular apps have come along that make encryption as easy as texting. So even after someone finally set up encrypted email, they couldn’t use it with most of the people they wanted to send encrypted emails to. The few that survived this process quickly hit a second barrier: They could only encrypt with others who had already jumped through the same hoops. Just to get started, you had to spend hours following along with jargon-filled tutorials, or be lucky enough to find a nerd friend to teach you.

Just a few years ago, sending encrypted messages was a challenge.

Texting signal