The Hated One

What Is the Most Private Messenger? I Ranked Every Messaging App!

The video applies the LINDDUN privacy‑threat framework—Linkability, Identifiability, Non‑Repudiation, Detectability, Data Disclosure, Unawareness, Non‑Compliance—to evaluate every major messaging platform. By breaking each threat into account, usage, and service vectors, the author assigns +/-3 points per vector, producing a composite privacy score for each app. Results show Briar and Cwtch at the pinnacle, earning full points for anonymous accounts, Tor routing, and zero data retention. Signal, while offering strong encryption, loses points for tying accounts to phone numbers and exposing its existence. SimpleXChat and Session score well on anonymity but still leak usage metadata on the public internet. Conventional services—WhatsApp, iMessage, Telegram, SMS—rank at the bottom due to advertising models, mandatory identifiers, and lack of default end‑to‑end encryption. The analysis highlights concrete examples: Signal’s discoverability feature lets anyone probe a phone number for an account; Telegram’s optional E2EE leaves most chats unprotected; Briar’s peer‑to‑peer design means no server‑side logs exist. The author also notes that even “secure” apps can fail non‑repudiation tests when governments demand user data, underscoring the difference between encryption and true deniability. For users and enterprises, the ranking clarifies which messengers truly minimize surveillance risk. Choosing a top‑scoring app like Briar or Cwtch can mitigate metadata collection and comply with stricter privacy regulations, while reliance on mainstream platforms continues to expose communications to advertisers and state actors.