This is a best practice that should be part of your organizing group’s basic guidelines–teach it and spread it long before you really need it. So for sensitive conversations, keep the group as small as practical, make sure everyone is actively checking their messages, and before action day arrives everyone should unlink their Signal Desktop apps. Just to be crystal clear - is Clara is part of a super secret group chat with disappearing messages and they leave their phone in storage and switched off for a month, any disappearing messages sent during that period will be waiting on Clara’s phone long after those messages have expired on everyone else’s device. But keep in mind the timer starts counting down separately for each recipient’s copy only once it is decrypted and read. We think it’s safe to trust that the messages really do disappear - it is like the messages are set with a self-destruct timer. If it’s showtime, it’s a good idea to set messages to disappear in an hour. How soon should messages disappear? If you’re sloganeering or trying to decide on times for public meetings, a week is probably OK.
(Note the group chat itself is * not* deleted by disappearing messages so if the list of people having a conversation is top secret, the group chat needs to be manually removed from all devices). Set messages to disappear *before* they are sent, otherwise there’s no way for you to erase them from your friends’ devices. Don’t leave sensitive messages lying around on everyone’s devices. Especially with group chats! Think about group chat lists (names, cellphone numbers and any other info you provided to your cellphone carrier/account) as if they could be used as evidence in a civil or criminal prosecution (conspiracy or otherwise) and delete that information as soon as you no longer need it. Use it as a community-building opportunity to say hello directly to all the folks you organize with, at least once.* Look for that checkmark badge on a conversation once you’ve verified everyone on it. You get a little checkmark badge after confirming someone’s safety number. Don’t message huge group chats without knowing who is on the group. Verify safety numbers of your contacts (in person or otherwise not using Signal). Also, if your device is out of date it is easier to hack, and if it’s hacked and someone can read your screen or listen to your microphone, Signal’s fancy crypto can’t protect you. If an adversary gets your phone and can unlock it, they get all the encrypted conversations, as well as the phone numbers of the people you’ve messaged, which are often their real, current phone numbers.
Keep your phone (and any synced desktop apps) encrypted, locked with a strong passcode, and up to date.
(A) Keep your Signal devices safe & secure. Here is how we recommend you all make best use of it: We here at CLDC recommend it to folks all the time. But still, Signal takes almost zero time or training and equips activists with 5-star end-to-end text, voice and video encryption with an accompanying desktop app that can make securely sharing files a cinch. Signal isn’t perfect and we’re not certain it’s designed with activists in mind–for instance, you and your friends can’t use it without all using real phone numbers.
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