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    MindedOneEric Ravenscraft
    8/05/16 8:49am

    I’m not the typical use case by any means, but being that I oftentimes swap my SIM at least once a week, sometimes multiple times a day, SMS is the convenient choice.

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      notabigbangMindedOne
      8/05/16 9:31am
      Illustration for article titled

      ?

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      MindedOnenotabigbang
      8/05/16 9:50am

      Does that mean something? Am I too old to know things now?

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    echo125488Eric Ravenscraft
    8/05/16 11:10am

    I’m still constantly amazed and baffled at the same time that we can send audio, images, video, words all through the air and space near instantaneously. I can chat with my counterparts in another country in real time. Amazing!

    It’s magic, voodoo, and witchcraft all rolled up into one.

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      StalePhishecho125488
      8/05/16 12:01pm

      And it’s also amazing how radio waves were discovered in the 1880s (130 years ago!) and have been changing the world ever since.

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    BurnedinLondon69Eric Ravenscraft
    8/05/16 9:10am

    Yeah, we had to make a conscious decision to encrypt customer SMSs in transit through our systems. They are in plain text and tbh people share too much when they think they are talking in private via a means they don’t fully control or understand.

    Any unencrypted communications system is subject to listening in and if you value your privacy, it’s about time you start using HTTPS for web based chat (yes, the vendor can probably read that stuff) and encrypted end-to-end communications for direct communications.



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    Out, but with a W - has found the answerEric Ravenscraft
    8/05/16 8:51am

    That final paragraph is also a good reason to use messaging apps that offer end-to-end encryption instead of SMS. The initial and final steps of such a message through the network are similar to SMS, but even if it is intercepted, it can’t be read without the correct key.

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    McLarryEric Ravenscraft
    8/05/16 12:53pm

    Also illuminating to note that your phone is sending pings to towers to do things like track signal strength, location, etc all the time. My understanding is that SMS messages are able to piggy-back on these little update pings, which means SMS messages are “free” to the carrier. In other words, that $15/mo or whatever you’re paying for unlimited text messaging is pure profit for the phone company.

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