We believe in protocols, not products. We believe in partnerships, not proprietary fiefdoms. We believe in building a community of collaborators, not a cacophony of criticism and unnecessary competition. We believe in practical solutions to perilous problems. 

With all of this in mind, we are very happy to announce our partnership and support of the ChatSecure for iOS open-source free software project. Through our our two year history, we have been lucky to receive support from a variety of donors and funders, and we are now using what influence and opportunities we have to endorse other projects that we feel are compatible with our outlook and goals.

Using ChatSecure on an iPhone or iPad, you can have an end-to-end encryption chat session with someone using the Guardian Project’s Gibberbot on Android (or Pidgin, Jisti, or Adium on the desktop as well) through any  Jabber/XMPP compliant chat service such as GTalk, Jabber.org, or even Facebook (gasp!). You can also run your own server using something like OpenFire or Prosody.

While we fundamentally believe that the more open platform and ecosystem of Android is a better choice for people at risk around the world, we know that the iPhone and iPad devices are very compelling and quite popular. This is especially true among some of our most closest, at-risk users – journalists and activists – people who praise the time saving usability of Apple products, while being frustrated they have no way to communicate as securely as they would like. Messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are terribly insecure, and there is still no open-source cross-platform encrypted SMS solution.

Now using ChatSecure and Gibberbot, members of the same organization, friends, or colleagues can now easily communicate in a completely secure manner between Android and iOS devices.

A message below from the ChatSecure team…

I would like to announce a partnership with The Guardian Project, who develops the Android equivalent of ChatSecure called Gibberbot, along with a whole suite of mobile security applications. It’s an exciting time for open-source secure mobile communications!

Version 1.2 has been approved! This new version includes support for limited background messaging, the #1 most requested feature. Yay!

Read more and learn about this great open-source effort on the ChatSecure blog: https://chatsecure.org/blog#2

If you are reading this on an iOS device, go to the App Store and install ChatSecure now!