[Sir_Cmpwn]

>Apple Hires Developer Behind Signal, Edward Snowden’s Favorite Secure Chat App

A "secure" chat app that depends on Google Play Services (spyware) and is only available through the Play Store (rather than F-Droid, an open source software repository for Android) and maintained by an author who refuses to integrate fixes to either of these problems upstream.

For those wondering if Google Play Services really is spyware: one of the purposes is to backdoor your phone for Google so they can _silently_ update any of their apps on your phone. It has access to _every_ Android permission and can (and does) grant any permission to any app silently. It also monitors your location and reports it to Google, along with brief voice snippets for "OK Google", as well as a list of all apps installed on your phone, and more. It's definitely an awful thing to have on your phone if you're privacy conscious.

[r0muald]

You're welcome to inform yourself on the subject before posting crude FUD: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-iOS/blob/master/BUI...

[Sir_Cmpwn]

I encourage you to do the same:

https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/issues/127

Security should be available to all, not just those with the environment and know-how to compile apps from source. Doubly so on iOS where you have to pay x dollars for a developer license.