Ughhh.... I actually had to make an account to post this, I guess it was long over due.
Signal is THE answer when it comes to encrypted, read private, communication via sms (texts). It is open source and has gone through numerous security audits by third party companies, both free of charge by companies who were curious/make a name for themselves and paid by the Signal team and other people who were concerned about privacy. Not a single audit has found a back door or anyway to purposefully circumnavigate the app's security features. That is not to say there isn't a zero day exploit lying in wait to be discovered. But, that is a problem of all software.
What makes signal great is, it uses end to end encryption. When you first make contact with another Signal user, the app automatically exchanges a public encryption key with that person. Your app uses their public key to encrypted your text when it is sent to that person. The app uses their private key to decrypt that text/data so that only they can read it. It doesn't go through a centralized server.
In other words, communication between you and another signal user is private and it would take a targeted attack on you in order to compromise that data.
Use Signal.
sign - some random dude from the internet who will no claim to be an expert in information security and has audited the app himself.
One additional note, if you plan on using Signal always, and I mean ALWAYS, use an alternative channel of communication to validate key exchange has been successful. The key you have for someone must match what they have and vice versa.
Ughhh.... I actually had to make an account to post this, I guess it was long over due.
Signal is THE answer when it comes to encrypted, read private, communication via sms (texts). It is open source and has gone through numerous security audits by third party companies, both free of charge by companies who were curious/make a name for themselves and paid by the Signal team and other people who were concerned about privacy. Not a single audit has found a back door or anyway to purposefully circumnavigate the app's security features. That is not to say there isn't a zero day exploit lying in wait to be discovered. But, that is a problem of all software.
What makes signal great is, it uses end to end encryption. When you first make contact with another Signal user, the app automatically exchanges a public encryption key with that person. Your app uses their public key to encrypted your text when it is sent to that person. The app uses their private key to decrypt that text/data so that only they can read it. It doesn't go through a centralized server.
In other words, communication between you and another signal user is private and it would take a targeted attack on you in order to compromise that data.
Use Signal.
sign - some random dude from the internet who will no claim to be an expert in information security and has audited the app himself.
One additional note, if you plan on using Signal always, and I mean ALWAYS, use an alternative channel of communication to validate key exchange has been successful. The key you have for someone must match what they have and vice versa.