As soon as you download Olvid, the instant messaging app chosen by the French government for its ministers (here’s the news), you have the possibility to create an account by choosing a name and surname. Name and surname and that’s it, you can start chatting.
Per use Olvid, from an Android or iOS smartphoneyou do not necessarily need a telephone number or an email or even a SIM, because the exchange of messages takes place via the Internet: this freedom, which also translates into discretion for the user, is among the strengths highlighted online by the developers. But it is also potentially one weakness.
Artificial intelligence Stealing data from ChatGPT, using ChatGPT: this is how AI reveals names, surnames, faces and addresses of people by Emanuele Capone 03 December 2023 Olvid’s app on the homepage of our Nothing Phone 2
How to use Olvid for chat
For this short test, we have chosen our real name and surname and our real information (type of job, company we work for) but nothing would have stopped us from choosing the name of another, of a colleague, of a colleague, even of a well-known person, and of trying to pass ourselves off as They. It’s true: it can also be done with the username on WhatsApp, but at least on the Meta app there is a connection with a telephone number that allows you to trace the identity of the person. If Olvid’s user base really expands, as is likely given the push given by the French government to this startup founded in 2019 by Thomas Baignères, Matthieu Finiasz, Jacques-André Bondy and Cédric Sylvestre, that of the so-called impersonators will be a problem to face. Exactly as it is (was?) for Twitter after the liberalization of the blue ticks.
Having said that, how can you chat on Olvid if the app is not based on a telephone number and does not connect to the smartphone’s address book (which however is identified immediately upon first login)? In the center of the main screen there is a large Plus icon on a blue background from which you can access your personal QR Code, which goes sent to the person with whom you want to start the conversation. It should be sent via WhatsApp, presumably.
Whoever receives it, receives it in the form of a link: by clicking it, you are invited to download the correct version of Olvid for your device and then to accept or reject the sender’s invitation. If you accept, you can start chatting, which is something that works more or less like on any other app of this kind: you can add attachmentswhether they are photos or videos present in the phone’s memory or captured directly from the app, send emoticons, ephemeral messages (i.e. with a limited duration and visibility over time), vocal (easier than on WhatsApp) and so on. The person on the other end does not see the now well-known indication is writing…there are no ticks that confirm sending, receiving and reading e you cannot take screenshots of anything, anywhere in the app. That is: they can be done, but they come out as completely black screens.
The invitation to use Olvid, received via WhatsApp The profile created on Olvid for this short test
twitter: the doubts of the president of Signal
The French PM is mandating ministers use a small French messaging app. OK.
But I’m alarmed that she’s claiming “security flaws” in Signal (et al) to justify the move.
This claim is not backed by any evidence, and is dangerously misleading esp. coming from gov. https://t.co/DWxilDiLWE
— Meredith Whittaker (@mer__edith) November 30, 2023
Safe on the Internet Twitter introduces encrypted direct messages. But are they really safe? by Pierluigi Paganini 16 May 2023
Is Olvid really that safe?
The experience with Olvid is more or less all there is to it, unless you choose to pay: la free version It allows you to send and receive messages with attachments, create groups and even receive calls but not make them. To be able to do this, and also to be able to use the app on multiple devices, it is necessary subscribe to the plan from 4.99 euros per month. Which is something we didn’t do, also because we honestly didn’t know who to test these encrypted calls with.
It is not just a problem of poor social interactions, but above all a security problem: as is known, the solidity of a messaging app is also demonstrated in daily use and in the number of users who use it and can help developers discover any flaws. And Olvid, as written about ten days ago also in Le Monde, is still too little widespread to be considered sufficiently secure by cybersecurity experts. Or at least as safe as Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram.
It is true that the user’s identity is not transmitted to the serversthat no one (nothing) comes between one person and the other and that therefore no one knows (should know) that two people have exchanged a message, but the doubts remain and are the same ones that he obviously pointed out Meredith Whittaker, presidente di Signalon Twitter: “It worries me that the French Prime Minister talks about security problems in Signal to justify the adoption of Olvid – he wrote – There is no evidence to support this thesiswhich is dangerously misleading especially because it comes from a government.”
@capoema