Signal Blog
Signal now offers a feature called “automatic key verification” which complements the existing safety number system . Signal is always end-to-end encrypted, and automatic key verification provides an additional, streamlined way to confirm that there’s no unexpected party between you and the other “end” of an end-to-end encrypted session. Read more...
The latest update for Signal Android introduces comprehensive support for linked devices. Now you can easily link another Android phone or Android tablet to your Signal account. Thanks to significant interface improvements to better support large devices, your messages will stay in sync across every screen and look good on all of them too. We’re also expanding linked device support on iOS so you…
We all take on different roles in relation to our friends, neighbors, family members, and colleagues. Keep those different roles clear in your many Signal group chats by using group member labels, now available in the latest versions of Signal for Android, Desktop, and iOS. Read more...
Your most frequently asked questions, dinner reservations, and vacation itineraries are already top of mind. Now they can be top of chat as well. In the latest version of Signal rolling out now, you can pin your most important messages to the top of your 1-1 and group chats. Read more...
Signal polling: An easier way to see what your group chat really thinks and feels. Read more...
We are excited to announce a significant advancement in the security of the Signal Protocol: the introduction of the Sparse Post Quantum Ratchet (SPQR). This new ratchet enhances the Signal Protocol’s resilience against future quantum computing threats while maintaining our existing security guarantees of forward secrecy and post-compromise security. Read more...
In the past, if you broke or lost your phone, your Signal message history was gone. This has been a challenge for people whose most important conversations happen on Signal. Think family photos, sweet messages, important documents, or anything else you don’t want to lose forever. This explains why the most common feature request has been backups; a way for people to get Signal messages back even…
Signal Desktop now includes support for a new “Screen security” setting that is designed to help prevent your own computer from capturing screenshots of your Signal chats on Windows. This setting is automatically enabled by default in Signal Desktop on Windows 11. If you’re wondering why we’re only implementing this on Windows right now, it’s because the purpose of this setting is to protect your…
With Signal on Desktop and iPad, you can link your primary Android or iOS account with another device, letting you check and respond to messages in both places or conduct video meetings and calls from the comfort of a bigger screen. Signal’s upcoming beta releases will also introduce the option to transfer your messages and media when you link your primary Signal device to a new Desktop or iPad.…
If you love group calls on Signal, but don’t want to create a group chat for every combination of your friends or colleagues, you’re in luck. Today we’re launching call links: Share a link with anyone on Signal and in just a tap or click they can join the call. No group chat required. Read more...
Several countries have recently blocked Signal, leaving their residents without a trusted and safe place to communicate. To help in this situation, Signal provides a built-in censorship circumvention feature and also includes support for a simple TLS proxy that can bypass these blocks in many circumstances and let people communicate privately. Read more...
Signal’s mission and sole focus is private communication. For years, Signal has kept your messages private, your profile information (like your name and profile photo) private, your contacts private, and your groups private – among much else. Now we’re taking that one step further, by making your phone number on Signal more private. Here’s how: Read more...
New long-sleeve shirts and tote bags fresh from the Signal test kitchen: We build Signal for people all over the world . So, of course we wanted to reflect that same global outlook in our merch. Read more...
Signal is the world’s most widely used truly private messaging app, and our cryptographic technologies provide extra layers of privacy beyond the Signal app itself. Since launching in 2013, the Signal Protocol—our end-to-end encryption technology—has become the de facto standard for private communication, protecting the contents of billions of conversations in WhatsApp, Google Messages, and many…
You should be able to communicate without worrying that every gossip tidbit, meme, or joke you share and who you share it with will get churned up into fodder for targeted ads or used to train an AI model. You also shouldn’t have to strip your communications down to the barest and most utilitarian version of relaying information. This is why Signal is dedicated to providing a truly private…
The Signal Protocol is a set of cryptographic specifications that provides end-to-end encryption for private communications exchanged daily by billions of people around the world. After its publication in 2013, the Signal Protocol was adopted not only by Signal but well beyond. Technical information on the Signal Protocol can be found in the specifications section of our docs site. Today we are…
Signal exists to provide people everywhere with a tool for real private communication. That’s our only goal, and we take it very seriously. We’re structured as a nonprofit to ensure that market forces can never put profit or expediency over the safety of those who rely on us. Our work also resonates beyond the Signal app. The Signal Protocol has become the foundation for end-to-end encryption…
The tech industry–its products, conceptual frameworks, linguistic conventions, and cultural norms–is largely centered in the US (and, increasingly, China. But we’re focused here on the US, where Signal is based). This is not because the US has better programmers or more visionary entrepreneurs, but due primarily to historical material conditions. For example, early investments in networked…
If your favorite way to update your friends about life disappears in 24 hours, we’ve got some happy news for you. Stories are now available on Signal for Android and iOS, with Desktop coming soon! Read more...
For many years, the Signal app on Android has supported sending and receiving plaintext SMS and MMS messages in addition to Signal messages. SMS and MMS are standardized communication protocols that allow mobile devices to send and transmit messages, and most people picking up their phone to text or share memes don’t really think about them. To give some context, when we started supporting SMS,…
Signal is currently blocked in Iran. To help people in the country access Signal, we are republishing and revising a post that we originally posted in February, 2021 during a very similar situation in Iran. If you are willing and able, please follow the instructions below to set up a proxy server that will enable people in Iran to connect to Signal. We are grateful to the community who pitches in…
On September 12 I’ll be stepping into the role of Signal’s President, a new position created in collaboration with Signal’s leadership. I am thrilled, and I can’t think of a more meaningful use of my time, or a greater honor. I’ve been a friend, admirer, and champion of Signal since it was RedPhone and TextSecure, and in 2020 I joined Signal’s Board of Directors, helping inform high-level strategy…
Private doesn’t mean lonely. Signal’s mission is to help you connect with people in a secure way. This means that you need to know which of your contacts are also on Signal. This is called “contact discovery” and it’s an essential part of any messaging app. Most other communications apps enable contact discovery by maintaining their own internal social graph or by uploading and storing your full…
People around the world count on Signal for things as simple as sharing moments of celebration like a graduation or as high stakes as coordinating a protest. We’ve got your back no matter what! As we’ve seen in recent times from moments of civil unrest to demonstrations for democracy, people turn to Signal for private and even lifesaving communications. Day in and day out, the team at Signal is…
Millions of people worldwide rely on Signal every day for secure and private communication. Some of these people change their phone number, but want to continue using Signal without registering for a new account. We now provide the ability to change the phone number on your Signal account, while retaining all of your chats, profile information, and groups. Read more...
It’s a new year, and I’ve decided it’s a good time to replace myself as the CEO of Signal. I have now been working on Signal for almost a decade. It has always been my goal for Signal to grow and sustain beyond my involvement, but four years ago that would still not have been possible. I was writing all the Android code, was writing all of the server code, was the only person on call for the…
Signal released end-to-end encrypted group calls a year ago, and since then we’ve scaled from support for 5 participants all the way to 40. There is no off the shelf software that would allow us to support calls of that size while ensuring that all communication is end-to-end encrypted, so we built our own open source Signal Calling Service to do the job. This post will describe how it works in…
Signal has no data to sell, no advertisers to sell it to, and no shareholders to benefit from such a sale. We’re building a different kind of tech – where your data stays in your hands – but we’re also building a different kind of tech organization . One without investors, quarterly earnings calls, or share price considerations. While the model for conventional tech companies incentivizes them to…
The phenomenon of unsolicited and unwanted messaging dates back to the earliest communication platforms: from prehistoric cave graffiti and postal chain letters to popup ads and robocalls. To prevent spam, most online services rely on large-scale inspection of plaintext conversation content or detailed social-graph analysis to determine who is saying what to whom and whether or not that should be…
As the norms for how people connect have changed, much of the communication that once took place through the medium of coffee shops, bars, and parks now takes place through the medium of digital devices. One side effect of this shift from analog to digital is the conjoined shift from the ephemeral to the eternal: words once transiently spoken are now – more often than not – data stored forever.…
Companies like Facebook aren’t building technology for you, they’re building technology for your data. They collect everything they can from FB, Instagram, and WhatsApp in order to sell visibility into people and their lives. This isn’t exactly a secret, but the full picture is hazy to most – dimly concealed within complex, opaquely-rendered systems and fine print designed to be scrolled past. The…
Cellebrite makes software to automate physically extracting and indexing data from mobile devices. They exist within the grey – where enterprise branding joins together with the larcenous to be called “digital intelligence.” Their customer list has included authoritarian regimes in Belarus, Russia, Venezuela, and China; death squads in Bangladesh; military juntas in Myanmar; and those seeking to…
As the world stands today, the future of transaction privacy does not look great. The existing landscape is dominated by traditional credit companies, who over the past decade have been steadily pushing their networks for increased access to user data. They (and their data customers) are on a track to getting SKU level data of every purchase everyone makes everywhere. There are other contenders,…
The latest Signal betas are rolling out today. Inside, you’ll find performance enhancements, a slew of bug fixes, improvements to the mute settings, and if you’re in the United Kingdom, you’ll see support for Signal Payments – a new feature that enables you to send and receive privacy focused payments as easily as sending or receiving a message. This is a beta feature in a beta build , but for…
Just over a week ago, we announced that Iranian censors had started blocking all Signal traffic in the country. As an interim solution to help people in Iran get connected again, we’ve added support in Signal for a simple TLS proxy that is easy to set up, can be used to bypass the network block, and will securely route traffic to the Signal service. This new connection method is supported in the…
Yesterday, the BBC ran a story with the factually untrue headline, “Cellebrite claimed to have cracked chat app’s encryption.” This is false. Not only can Cellebrite not break Signal encryption, but Cellebrite never even claimed to be able to. Since we weren’t actually given the opportunity to comment in that story, we’re posting this to help to clarify things for anyone who may have seen the…
2020 has seen its fair number of challenges and changes. We’ve all adapted to new ways of staying in touch, getting work done, celebrating birthdays and weddings, and even exercising. As more and more of our critical and personal moments move online, we want to continue to provide you with new ways to share and connect privately. Today, we’re launching group calls in Signal with the latest…
We recently released a new version of Signal groups with group admins, @mentions, permissions, and more. Today we’re adding one more feature into the mix: group links, which let you quickly create a link that anyone can follow to join your group. Like our other new group features, you can create a new group to try it out now, but these features will be coming soon to your existing Signal groups.…
Signal has always benefitted from our engaged and supportive community, and wouldn’t be what it is without your input and feedback. As the number of people using Signal has grown, so have our efforts to keep pace with what people expect from a messaging app, and where we might find new opportunities for Signal. Software companies typically overflow with data that explains the past and forecasts…
Now that voice and video calls are available for everyone on Signal Desktop and iPad, in addition to our mobile clients, we want to share a closer look at the technology that makes it possible for incoming calls to ring across multiple devices. Every call placed on Signal has always been private and end-to-end encrypted, but we previously supported only calls to or from one primary device per…
Whether it’s staying in touch with family and friends, planning a party, scheduling an event, getting work done, or organizing for change , group chats are an increasingly important part of Signal. Today we’re releasing a new version of Signal groups that gives you a richer private group experience with group admins, granular permissions, @mentions and more. If you’re excited to try out these…
Update: This feature is now available in production. The latest beta release of Signal Desktop includes preliminary support for one-to-one voice and video calls. Call your friends and family on macOS, Windows, and Linux; see their smiles on a larger screen; hear their laughter through the big speakers on your desk; and help us test the next generation of calling on Signal. Beta users get an early…
The number of people who join Signal every day is still growing at a record pace. With so many new conversations getting started, we’ve heard from a lot of users that they’d like more control over how they begin. With message requests, when someone who isn’t in your contacts starts a new chat with you or adds you to a group, you can quickly see more info before accepting the request, deleting it,…
Sometimes people dive into Signal’s code looking for domain names, and then they send us screenshots asking if they should be concerned: We reply with a short explanation that lays out why there’s nothing wrong, but we understand the confusion. Nobody would be excited about getting a grade like this on a homework assignment – and you’d have to stay after class and ask the teacher what the hell a…
It’s been about two weeks since we announced an initiative to distribute versatile face coverings to help support everyone who is self-organizing for change in the streets. Since then, we’ve shipped over $25,000 worth of face coverings to organizers throughout the United States. Over $6,000 worth of merchandise was sent to Washington D.C. last week in time for the Juneteenth events in the heart of…
The world was a different place when we announced message reactions back in February, but expressing the way you feel has never been more important. Instead of being limited to the default set of reactions that we started with, the latest Signal updates for Android, Desktop, and iOS let you react with even more emoji. Read more...
Signal iOS now includes a new feature that makes it possible to switch to a brand-new iPhone or iPad while securely transferring Signal information from your existing iOS device. As with every new Signal feature, the process is end-to-end encrypted and designed to protect your privacy . Transfers also occur over a local connection (similar to AirDrop), so even large migrations can be completed…
One immediate thing seems clear about 2020: it’s a good year to cover your face. Online, we’re working to scale and improve Signal for everyone that is relying on it, but as one small offline way to help support everyone self-organizing for change in the streets, we’re also distributing face coverings free of charge. Read more...
In the midst of world-wide protests against racism and police brutality, a lot of people are becoming more immediately aware and concerned about the security of their data and online communication. We’ve gotten a lot of questions at Signal over the past week, so we wanted to briefly recap how it is that we’ve designed Signal, and how we think about concepts like privacy, security, and trust. Read…
Right now, people around the world are marching and protesting against racism and police brutality, outraged by the most recent police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. At Signal, we support the people who have gone into the streets to make their voices heard. We believe that something in America needs to change, and even if we don’t know exactly how, we support and trust in the people…