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Got called paranoid for using Signal in a coffee shop in Austin last week...
I was sitting at a cafe on South Congress sending a message to a friend about a protest plan, and the guy next to me goes 'why are you using that sketchy app?' and then tells me I'm being too careful. Like, dude, I literally work with journalists who get their phones seized at the border... has anyone here had random people side-eye you for using encrypted apps in public?
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felix15517d ago
Oh man, that's such a weird thing to call someone out on in public. I mean, it's not like you were doing anything shady, you were just messaging a friend. Maybe it's just me but if someone's weirded out by Signal they probably don't really get how much data normal apps hoover up. Signal's the one app that actually doesn't sell your info or hand it over to advertisers. The guy next to you probably has Facebook Messenger and thinks that's just as private, which is... not really how it works.
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robin48916d ago
Man, your friend Jenna handled that way better than I would have! My buddy Tom was on a video call with me last year at a diner in Philly, just using Signal, and this waitress came over and whispered "you know the feds can read those, right?" He just stared at her and said "ma'am I'm just sending pictures of my cat." The funny thing is, she was using an iPhone with all their default iMessage settings on, which honestly probably shares way more with Apple than Signal ever would. People hear "encrypted" and their brains go straight to spy movies instead of just a normal app.
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abbyc3316d ago
Dang, @felix155 hit the nail on the head. Something pretty similar happened to my friend Jenna last month at a Starbucks in Brooklyn. She was just texting her sister on Signal and this older guy at the next table leaned over and was like "you know that app is for terrorists, right?" She just laughed it off but told me later it made her feel super awkward for no reason. People really do not get that Signal is literally just a normal messaging app, it's not some shady spy tool.
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