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kadal [kadaldc] writes:

Approximately two weeks ago, Open Whisper Systems announced [whispersystems.org] the merger of two of it's Android apps, Redphone (secure calling) and TextSecure (encrypted messaging) into one: Signal for Android. This is a counterpart to Signal for iOS, created by the same team. A Chrome extension [github.com] is forthcoming.

Signal has been getting a lot of love from the security community (Snowden [theintercept.com], Schneier [schneier.com], etc) specifically for it's user-friendliness --- something that has prevented the adoption of other crypto software [wsj.com].

The encrypted messaging algorithm seems to be a version of OTR modified for asynchronous mobile environments. Some version of this has been implemented in CyanogenMod as WhisperPush [whispersystems.org] and WhatsApp [wired.com].

Their blog has a lot of nerdy crypto detail for those interested. For example: deniability [whispersystems.org], forward secrecy, calling network [whispersystems.org].

All of their code is open source [github.com] and funded by donations [freedom.press]. Donations are also possible using bitcoin. Accepted pull requests get a payout using another of their projects, Bithub [whispersystems.org] (code [github.com]).

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