An official FBI document dated January 2021, obtained by the American association “Property of People” through the Freedom of Information Act.
This document summarizes the possibilities for legal access to data from nine instant messaging services: iMessage, Line, Signal, Telegram, Threema, Viber, WeChat, WhatsApp and Wickr. For each software, different judicial methods are explored, such as subpoena, search warrant, active collection of communications metadata (“Pen Register”) or connection data retention law (“18 USC§2703”). Here, in essence, is the information the FBI says it can retrieve:
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Apple iMessage: basic subscriber data; in the case of an iPhone user, investigators may be able to get their hands on message content if the user uses iCloud to synchronize iMessage messages or to back up data on their phone.
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Line: account data (image, username, e-mail address, phone number, Line ID, creation date, usage data, etc.); if the user has not activated end-to-end encryption, investigators can retrieve the texts of exchanges over a seven-day period, but not other data (audio, video, images, location).
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Signal: date and time of account creation and date of last connection.
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Telegram: IP address and phone number for investigations into confirmed terrorists, otherwise nothing.
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Threema: cryptographic fingerprint of phone number and e-mail address, push service tokens if used, public key, account creation date, last connection date.
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Viber: account data and IP address used to create the account; investigators can also access message history (date, time, source, destination).
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WeChat: basic data such as name, phone number, e-mail and IP address, but only for non-Chinese users.
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WhatsApp: the targeted person’s basic data, address book and contacts who have the targeted person in their address book; it is possible to collect message metadata in real time (“Pen Register”); message content can be retrieved via iCloud backups.
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Wickr: Date and time of account creation, types of terminal on which the application is installed, date of last connection, number of messages exchanged, external identifiers associated with the account (e-mail addresses, telephone numbers), avatar image, data linked to adding or deleting.
TL;DR Signal is the messaging system that provides the least information to investigators.
Whilst enlightening, it’s kinda also useless. Let’s be honest the majority of endusers use a particular app, in the main, because its most likely what everyone else in their friend group uses.
In my case WhatsApp, I’d struggle to get all my friends and family to change at this point.
Took me a moment, but I converted most close contacts to Telegram. Not Meta-infested and solid apps including desktop.
It gets easier the more you already have.
I just do it the easy way: I’m using Signal. If you want to text me or receives texts from me then use it.
Now it’s not just my friends but my neighbors now. SMS is straight garbage, I won’t use it.
In my case, I was running phone apps on an iPod Touch, and it couldn’t run WhatsApp. So I convinced a core group of friends to get on Signal back Snowden rec’d it. And the way networks operate, it spread out from there.
I feel very lucky and still somewhat skeptical that I was able to get friends and family onboard with Signal. Then I remember (1) most people don’t think twice about installing random apps and (2) most people are best suited for an easy onboarding experience like Signal offers.
You don’t “have to” use apps that compromise your security. If you really want to switch to better practices you can and can still thrive. I got and persuaded my whole company and friend groups off of bad apps. It’s possible.