Silent Text 2 Adds Better Encryption For Secure Messaging

Silent Circle has released a significant update for its Silent Text encrypted messaging application for iPhone and iPad, including new GUI design and improved security.

Silent Text 2.0 lets users send and receive messages and files up to 100MB in size securely to anyone with a Silent Circle subscription, which costs $9.99 a month. These messages can have a time limit and are encrypted end-to-end from a mobile device on the Silent Circle Network.

The new cosmetic features include a native iPad split-screen experience, a secure contact book, the ability to queue messages offline to send later, return receipts and a secure media shelf to keep track of documents and photos sent in conversations.

Silent Text 2

However one of most significant new features rectifies an obvious problem with the original release. The main encryption algorithms used in the first version of Silent Text were designed with the assumption that both the sender and recipient were concurrently connected to the network – something which is not always possible with mobile messaging.

Silent Text 2.0 makes it possible to send messages without having to wait for the intended recipient to respond, while it also adds a number of new encryption algorithms and better security for data at rest, with the iOS implementation completely rewritten.

“We walked away from Apple’s CoreData and didn’t look back. We replaced it with YapDatabase, developed by our own very talented Robbie Hanson,” says Vinnie Moscaritolo, the developer and creator of Silent Text. “This gave us amazing improvements in performance and reliability as well as substantially better anti-forensics on the data at rest. All the protocol security in the world won’t help you if your device is not well protected and so we treat that with the same amount of concern.”

Moscaritolo promises there are still ideas in the works for future versions, including group conversations and improvements in cloud storage management: “We have come a long way in the last two years and I believe you will be happy where we are going.”

Earlier this year, Silent Circle announced a joint-venture with Spanish smartphone manufacturer Geeksphone to create a pro-privacy handset. The first Blackphone was unveiled at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in February, promising secure communications for privacy-conscious individuals and organisations in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations of the US state-sponsored espionage programmes.

What do you know about MWC?