Normie messaging app versus email

beantaco:

Some app (anti)feature related issues I imagine may be of concern are (listing this primarily for my own reference)

• The Android app’s mandatory permissions
• Leakage of account ownership information etc via contact discovery
• Disabling or bypassing E2EE by mistake
• Leakage of messages via notifications
• Delivery receipts and read receipts
• Leakage of URLs inside messages via URL previews
• Absence of disappearing messages

First I need to make a correction. Letter sealing launched as an optional setting, it is now default. I’ll try to answer your questions as best I can.

• Android permissions: I and everyone I talk with on LINE use iPhones so I do not have familiarity with the Android version of the app.
• You can turn off contact discovery; I have it set so I have to manually add contacts either by sending a link or scanning a QR code in person. I am not searchable by number/user ID/etc.
• E2EE is on by default and I don’t think it can be turned off anymore, at least for the functions it covers. Importantly, group voice/video calls are not E2EE but 1-on-1 voice/video calls are
• Notifications is really an OS level issue, not an app level one. If you are concerned about this I would just disable notifications.
• This can be activated but there is not documentation on whether or not they are E2EE
• There is no mention of URL previews in their documentation, I would assume it is not E2EE but that is an assumption
• Disappearing messages are not an option; how much of a concern this depends on your conversation content.

I Hope this is helpful. Overall you have to balance your security concerns with the risk. When dealing with ‘normies’, I focus on harm reduction rather than a perfect solution. LINE is a harm-reduction compared to Gmail or SMS so I would consider it a positive development in your communication with your friend.