With all the recent news about privacy violations, user data requests, gag orders and the like, it is useful to know that there are tools to communicate in safer ways. I can’t say that they are bullet-proof, as I’m not a security analyst, but at least you can add an extra layer of complexity to those trying to tap into your communications.
- Redphone – allows you to have encrypted phone calls
- TextSecure – for secure SMS/MMS communication
- Gibberbot – for encrtypted chat over Jabber (XMPP) or Google Talk (Hangouts), Facebook Chat, VKontakte, Yandex, Hyves, Odnoklassniki, StudiVZ, Livejournal, and more
- OscuraCam – helps you censor out parts of an image like a phone number, license plate, a face…or body part
- NoteCipher – stores encrypted notes on your mobile device
- GNU Privacy Guard for Android – to encrypt anything, from notes, photos.. any file and emails
- K-9 Mail – an open source email client with PGP support for sending and receiving encrypted emails
- Orbot – a free proxy app for your mobile device that encrypts your traffic using the TOR network.
On the browser you can use:
- Mailvelope – for encrypting your emails through webmail.
- Cryptocat – for private chats within the web browser using OTR encryption
As I mentioned before in my encryption tutorial, having your privacy is not about having something to hide, it’s more about protecting yourself.
In the words of author Ayn Rand:
Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
2 replies on “10 apps for privacy and secure communication”
Thanks for the links! These help a lot!
Thanks for this great list, this is very interesting. There also is ugo.io which is very young but full of promise to transfer files for private purpose.