As the name implies, instant messaging is a fast-paced means of communication. This characteristic has numerous advantages – but also a few disadvantages: due to the fast pace, typos are the rule rather than the exception, and, what’s worse, sometimes messages get sent to the wrong contact in the heat of the moment.
Preserving privacy on the Internet isn’t easy: advertisers are finding ever more sophisticated ways to collect user data, and new, convenient technology detracts from the negative impact on privacy. The resulting decline in online privacy is further fueled by the fact that online privacy can, due to its abstract nature, be quite hard to grasp.
Mobile instant messengers became popular as a replacement for SMS messages. Today, they are one of the most widely used Internet services and are no longer limited to written communication – voice messages and video calls are now just as much a part of chat apps as text messages.
As highlighted by recent news stories and social media posts, the desktop apps of some messaging services are affected by a long-standing security issue. We’ve been asked whether Threema’s desktop client also suffers from this or any similar flaw. The short answer: No. Threema users don’t need to take any precautions and can continue to use the desktop app. The longer, more explanatory answer:
With its legislative proposal known as “Chat Control,” the EU Commission is trying to establish an unprecedented mass-surveillance apparatus of Orwellian proportions in the European Union. If EU citizens don’t stand up for privacy now, it may be too late.
The cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier has recently published an interesting blog post in which he (together with co-author Barath Raghavan) argues that online privacy is continuing to decline for the same reason overfishing occurred in the last century – due to the “Shifting Baseline Syndrome.” The presented analogy is a powerful one, but we still feel that it falls flat in some regards, and in reality, online privacy might even be worse off than suggested.
For the longest time, Swiss German was exclusively a spoken language – everything written had to be in standard German. This has changed with the emergence of chat apps like Threema: with its informal character, instant messaging helped dialects find their way into written communication.
Voice messages polarize: while some use this feature on a daily basis, others prefer to keep their hands off it. Whichever camp you belong to: the most recent Threema update for iOS has something for everyone, sporting a new look for voice messages and adding the option to star messages.
Over the past days, two popular chat services have accused each other of having undisclosed government ties. According to Signal president Meredith Whittaker, Telegram is not only “notoriously insecure” but also “routinely cooperates with governments behind the scenes.” Telegram founder Pavel Durov, on the other hand, claims that “the US government spent $3M to build Signal’s encryption” and Signal’s current leaders are “activists used by the US state department for regime change abroad.”
