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Anyone installed TextSecure and RedPhone by WhisperSystems or Silent Phone and Silent Text by Silent Circle on a Replicant phone?

Added by Boaz Boaz over 9 years ago

RedPhone is an application for encrypting mobile phone calls using ZRTP. TextSecure is an application for encrypting SMS messages using its own protocol similar to OTR. Both are developed by WhisperSystems (you might know Moxie Marlinspike, one of the people behind WhisperSystems)

Whisper Systems website: https://whispersystems.org/
TextSecure on GitHub: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure/
RedPhone on GitHub: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/RedPhone

Silent Phone is an application for encrypting mobile phone calls using ZRTP. Silent Text is an application for encrypting SMS messages using its own protocol called SCIMP, which is similar to ZRTP, OTR, and the protocol that CryptoCat uses. It is developed by Silent Circle (you might know Phil Zimmermann, one of the people behind Silent Circle).

Silent Circle website: https://www.silentcircle.com/
Silent Text on Github: https://github.com/SilentCircle/silent-text-android
Silent Phone on GitHub: https://github.com/SilentCircle/silent-phone-android

If you're using Replicant, I'm guessing you care deeply about software freedom. RedPhone and TextSecure are free software licensed under GPLv3. Silent Text and Silent Phone have their source code as well as build instructions published (on GitHub), but I can't tell what if any free software license they're licensed under, so they might not technically qualify as free software.

Silent Circle's apps are available on the Google Play Store. They have source code and build instructions on GitHub. They are not on F-Droid.
Whisper Systems apps are also available on the Google Play Store. They also have source code and build instructions on GitHub. They are also not on F-Droid.

So what I'm wondering is, has anyone installed or tried to install any of these applications on Replicant? Or, maybe someone would like to try and I'll also try and we can swap stories here of how it goes?

Or, maybe someone has comments or thoughts about one or more of these applications?

Or, maybe someone is interested in an initiative to get one or both of these sets of applications into F-Droid?

Etc...


Replies (6)

RE: Anyone installed TextSecure and RedPhone by WhisperSystems or Silent Phone and Silent Text by Silent Circle on a Replicant phone? - Added by cinnamon r about 9 years ago

Hi Boaz Boaz. I don't know if you are still interested in this but I have been using both, primarily redphone has been easier to setup, chatsecure doesn't require a phone number and textsecure I use by default.

I have noticed redphone makes the audio very faint.

RE: Anyone installed TextSecure and RedPhone by WhisperSystems or Silent Phone and Silent Text by Silent Circle on a Replicant phone? - Added by cinnamon r about 9 years ago

Hi Mzee Mzee, I guess I wasn't clear about my os.

I am using cyanogenmod not replicant. I haven't successfully got replicant on my device.

I don't know what the best method is. I don't recommend 3rd party sites because it is not reliable and secure.

As for WhisperSystem's policy:

http://support.whispersystems.org/customer/portal/questions/8271098-download-apk

"TextSecure will never be officially available on F-Droid, however we are working on another solution. You can read more about the issue here."

I wish it weren't so.

RE: Anyone installed TextSecure and RedPhone by WhisperSystems or Silent Phone and Silent Text by Silent Circle on a Replicant phone? - Added by doak complex almost 9 years ago

Somebody naming itself "Eric Fontaine") did (his own statement) successfully compile TextSecure for Replicant. Sadly he is not providing any special instructions. Therefore it is either straight forward and covered by build instructions provided by WhisperSystems or it ist just not documented.
Anyway, I haven't tried the APK (and I not going to do that) but will see if I found time to build it myself.
Please refer this link:
http://ericfontaine.io/2014/02/03/self-compiled-TextSecure-apk.html

I am wondering if anybody (meaning WhisperSystems) can perevent us to just build the APK and distribute it on F-Droid? I would say not.
Question is if it is technically possible, isn't it?
It seems, considering the statement of Eric.

Perhaps Google's GCM (posted by cinnamon) is a show stopper considering freedom...?

Regards,
doak

RE: Anyone installed TextSecure and RedPhone by WhisperSystems or Silent Phone and Silent Text by Silent Circle on a Replicant phone? - Added by Paul Kocialkowski almost 9 years ago

Maybe you should raise the issue with F-Droid folks, both about the instructions to build it from source and about why it cannot be included in F-Droid.

If it comes with restrictions for its distribution, we can hardly still call it free software.

RE: Anyone installed TextSecure and RedPhone by WhisperSystems or Silent Phone and Silent Text by Silent Circle on a Replicant phone? - Added by T M over 8 years ago

I have a build of a fork of TextSecure running on Replicant on the Galaxy S3. It uses websockets to connect to the textsecure server instead of push messaging which removes the dependency on Google Play Services. Build instructions here: https://github.com/JavaJens/TextSecure/wiki/Building-the-Websockets-reborn-fork

Moxie has said multiple times that he views F-Droids model of security as broken, and that he doesn't want it on F-Droid. This fork is experimental work, pretty buggy still and not suitable for end users. Please if you choose to use this fork, don't go and post it on F-Droid. Pissing off Moxie further will hurt chances of getting merged into the upstream codebase. If you have the skills to build it yourself, great, go for it, but right now it's not ready for end-users. That said, bugfixes and Pull Requests are always wanted!

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