[Q] Text encryption application(s)? - EVO 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I've looked around and read some threads and some appear to be way old or not answer precisely what I'd like to be done.
I am paranoid, if you didn't already guess. I'd like an application that could encrypt my SMS/MMS, if possible. Some solutions out there claim that both users must be on Android or both users must have the application installed and enabled.
Is there a way to send encrypted SMS/MMS to another without the use of both being on the same platform or both having the same application installed? I'm sure there isn't, as that seems that it would be sent in a way that carriers couldn't decipher when sending the text through to the recipient.
I'm just wondering if something like this might be in the works or is even possible.
Big fan of privacy.

Related

auto replying to text messages?

I receive, on a fairly frequent basis, the same text message from a coworker of mine. They ask for a particular password (because they can never remember it) and I give it to them. It can, at times, be a little annoying, but it did get me thinking...
Is there a program that'll auto reply to text messages conforming to a certain pattern and from a certain party? Is there a program that'll make it so any text from Bob saying "whats the pw" will automatically be replied to with the password?
I searched and found a whole bunch of stuff, but don't think they're exactly what you're looking for. Perhaps someone else personally knows of a particular application that is suitable.
But anyway, I just want to say that you need to file a complaint against that co-worker!
-Sharing passwords should be against your company policy.
- Releasing passwords via an unsecure medium (ie, SMS) should also be against policy.
- Also, if you've sent him the password via SMS before, he should be smart enough to just look through his SMS history for it.
By the way, it's not worth installing an application just because of 1 person's memory problem. You should grab his mobile and save the password as a note on his device. Super cheap dumbphones have notes applications these days...
ohyeahar said:
I searched and found a whole bunch of stuff, but don't think they're exactly what you're looking for. Perhaps someone else personally knows of a particular application that is suitable.
But anyway, I just want to say that you need to file a complaint against that co-worker!
-Sharing passwords should be against your company policy.
- Releasing passwords via an unsecure medium (ie, SMS) should also be against policy.
- Also, if you've sent him the password via SMS before, he should be smart enough to just look through his SMS history for it.
By the way, it's not worth installing an application just because of 1 person's memory problem. You should grab his mobile and save the password as a note on his device. Super cheap dumbphones have notes applications these days...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a screen saver password for a demo computer. There's only one account on the computer - 'demo'. The fact that it even has a password is fairly ridiculous, imho - it sits in storage until an employee takes it out and prospective customers aren't left alone with it. But alas, I don't have much say in the matter.

easier to use rom for youngsters and oldies

Question to all devs, android and winmo alike:
would it be possible to create a rom for a davice with a large (3"+) touchscreen that gives the option of calling only a few preprogrammed numbers and receive incoming calls from only a few programmed numbers?
also, restrict access to all the advanced features like web browsing etc?
something that will respond to an sms from a certain number with a certain content by performing an action? like silent callback or sending gps fix?
this would be for a child.
as for older users, a large number keypad on the touchscreen with a list of contacts? displaying none of the more advanced info that would scare an older luddite using it?
think jitterbug phone, just better.
I would love to be able to get my 6 year old son and an old friend of the family a phone that is tailored exactly to their needs without having to go for some ridiculously xpensive scheme lie jitterbug.
regards,
Resopalrabotnick
Why do you need a child carry a WM or an Android device? You may "restrict" the access to a browser simply by not including a browser in a rom. Let's disable in registry installing new programs by running a .cab and the problem is solved?
You may have a look at Spb Kiosk too.
Dunno how to restrict numbers, you may try a Call filtering app, put some white-listed numbers there and exclude the program from the start menu. Or just don't include the shortcut into rom. No idea how to restrict outgoing calls.
I saw a phone creeper app that can track you down the smses that the phone receives, so I think that's worth a try too.
I hope I explained a little.
it seems to me like it would be easiest to create a solution for ease of use and in the case of the youth version restrictability by customizing a smartphone versus trying to customize a featurephone.
the old age version is basically intended to be something as easy and intuitive to use as an old bakelite phone.

Multiple User Acconuts

I hate it when people ask me if they could use my phone for "a sec" Don't get me wrong, I like helping others, but sometimes my GF sends me stuff that I don't want others to be able to look at such as text messages. I haven't used a android yet besides playing with the demo at the store, so does android have a feature with multiple user accounts kind of like a computer? That way logging into a Guest account that limits them to using calling and maybe web.
there isnt such a thing by default, is there an app? possibly, im not sure. you raise a very valid concern.
to counter with a equally valid point, you can always say no.

Mango messaging... the downside

The mango messaging system seems nice and all, but I really wonder why they did not keep it seperated.
I had my doubts and than I read this article http://wmpoweruser.com/mango-and-messaging-we-have-a-problem/ which sums up some more issues.
Basically my biggest problem is that we send more important stuff trough SMS it has a much higher value than an IM. So whenever somebody smsses an adress, i will need to scroll trough 100s of IMs which I can not clear since the address is still there in one of those messages.
Second: the media are different, you can not expect the other user to switch to FB chat to MSN than to sms because I want to change service, this still incorporate 3 different media for the majority of the users namely a WL desktop client, facebook webpage and a phone for regular texting (which also costs money so people will use it differently)
Third, we used msn when we were 12, now nobody uses it in my country but I would like to use FB chat... This is not possible, you can only switch off FB chat or switch off both. So the whole feature will be useless if I dont want to use msn/windows live messenger.
Notifications: what if smsses are inportant but IMs not, hopefully I will be able to receive a toast ONLY with sms messages and just let the IMs slide. Imagine receiving 100 messages every 10 minutes it will drive you nuts. And here comes the next problem when there is an important sms inbetween you dont know who send it, because if you open up messages they all look the same so you dont know who texted you (important) or has send you and im (which has less priority).
I wish they can make a new tab for the im conversations or atleast filter the thread down on ALL / SMS / IM. As it is now, it will be nice for kids but if you are 16+ it will become a major pain to find what is important and what is just spam.
The system right now is shortsighted and of poor value. an implementation like blackberry's is better. SMS is a different system, mail is a different system, IM is as well, you all respond differently on each one of them. It should be possible to mannage each seperately. Now ill have to be always offline and rely on third party just to im trough FB which kills the use of this native feature, but SMS messages are just to important to blend with the IMs.
This is all speculation to be fair, they have beta testers so if there are issues with notifications they will probably be aware of these. I'm happy to use a separate messaging client and keep my messaging hub for sms only as long as WLM is allowed again in IM+ and others. That would just make things easy.
On a side note people should stop complaining that nobody uses WLM, enough with that, it's the most used IM client in the world!
I'm not 12 andstill this is my number one choice for IM as I barely use my facebook account and it has integrated facebook chat anyway.
fair (and while I wrote the article)
one major issue with being in a beta of anything is that it takes time for testing and that's huge. I mean looking at Adam Lein and others, the sms interface was a bit bare and naked - save from the actual threaded view.
In nodo, we have seen the issue of some lag in the SMS window (not nearly as bad as windows mobile, but still very noticeable) and there needs to be some richer options for recall, optimization and trash collection.
I love the idea for having a central messaging hub that integrates the services I use most (microsoft specifically). I still use MSN and it's my favorite messaging tool (I used yahoo early in college, and AIM in high school) so I use MSN a lot.
The notification I don't feel is a huge issue (as Eldar contends). There are far more bigger problems with the SMS view from a variety of different contexts. All in all, there may be a big problem. I doubt it will be solved till Apollo but that is definitely a worse case scenario.
I mean yes, the sms lag is better in nodo, but not by much
One thing to note, if you dont want to use WLM or Facebook chat just change the method of communication to SMS. There is absolutely nothing forcing you to send IM's if YOU dont want to, its only there as a convenience to WP7 users so you can continue your conversation across the different mediums seamlessly. Just because someone is online on Facebook chat or WLM doesnt mean you cant just send an SMS if that is your preference.
efjay said:
One thing to note, if you dont want to use WLM or Facebook chat just change the method of communication to SMS. There is absolutely nothing forcing you to send IM's if YOU dont want to, its only there as a convenience to WP7 users so you can continue your conversation across the different mediums seamlessly. Just because someone is online on Facebook chat or WLM doesnt mean you cant just send an SMS if that is your preference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know. Thats not the problem. But it will render the built in IM useless if disabled.
The problem is the communication trough SMS is totally different than the communication trough IM. Which will occur on different devices still for the majority out there. An SMS to me is still a high priority thing in some cases, if you want to make an appointment it works fine trough sms, however if its cluttered with all IM's from other users and stuff Im afraid one can easily get lost in the received messages and not find the IM of the appointment when looking for it or trying to find it again after you have read it.
Having IMs seperated (which are in general sended way more frequently with less important stuff than SMS) would be better because now the user can decide to use the built in IM and keep it seperated from the SMS OR mix them in a thread if he/she desires. But one will still have the advantage of starting an IM out of the people hub.
Also I know you dont have to use it, I've seen all the demo's and read about it. But the thing is what if I want to use it but just Facebook and what if I still want to see my SMS messages seperated. Using just FB chat is not possible atm, it will also pull up your WLM contacts, it would be totally cool if I could set MSN status as offline and FB status as online, but as it looks right now its only possible the other way around...
To explain the problem in more detail
Picture this: you have the device in your pocket, its fine if people want to contact me trough Facebook, but if somebody sends me an SMS with the appointmet and half an hour later starts talking to me on FB chat (because he/she is on FB than), I check my phone and the SMS with the appointment has sunk all the way down since there have been 10 new IM's from this person.
Its easy to lose/forget the valuable information if you can not check your phone every minute.
Dont get me wrong, its a feature with great potential but as of now, it will need more control over the different services (individual statusses per service) and some way to filter out the SMS messages and hide the IM or vica versa.
This feature will benefit a lot more when it would also be possible for whatapp to be integrated, which resembles the SMS a lot better than IM.
Maybe Microsoft could add a filter option? For example, when the SMS filter is toggled it would only show text messages as well send only text messages .
@Marvin_S: You could come across the same situation if you get a lot of SMS's as well, same as with email. I see your point but making them separate just makes it messier, having to switch back and forth to send messages and having to determine where a new message is. If you start adding separate notifications for each protocol then it becomes even more complex to implement and manage.
Much easier to have all the messages on one screen and you can easily just scroll to find what you want and not have to try and figure out by which method the message was delivered.
SMS isn't just for important conversations. There is a reason why people run through thousands of SMS in a month nowadays, and its not because they are really important. Its because people use SMS the same way they use IM, to chat.
If you are getting something really important in an SMS (like an appointment), it might make sense to copy it over into a task or your calendar.
nice work !http://media.xda-developers.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif
Why would it make anything messier? It should be optional ofcourse, so it will only help those who will need to keep it organised.
Well SMS and IM are very different. That some of us use it the same way is a choice of course, just like some people chose to use it as different media to communicate.
You can NOT receive IM's if you dont want to receive it (OFFLINE) and the other party will not be able to send you one, while with SMS it will be sent whenever somebody desires and will be read whenever the reader has the time (always delivered --> higher priority/value).
This for me is a fundamental difference and makes SMS more reliable for appointments or letting somebody know where you are on the go.
And I just wondered why MS chose to do it this way, while all the other platforms have these forms of communication seperated.
I can see this having a good and a bad side, maybe I worry too much about the negative aspect, but it can be solved easily by providing us with some more settings to have more control over how we want to receive our IM's and Texts.
Like sheltem said a switch or a pivot with All/IM/Text will make it simple for the user to narrow its search down. And maybe defaulting it to All (like email, All/unread/flag) and having the same interface to delete IM's and texts will be great.
I have faith MS will come up with a solution which will satisfy both parties and I have full faith that they will...
thank god I didn't have to reiterate my position ad nauseum
I've been doing that since the article has been written and while I don't mind spirited debate of how windows phone is versus how it could be, it's like many users sorta either focused on Eldar's contentions, the notification, or the sms window and not the total sums of each argument.
As I said before, for us, geeks, there may not be much of an issue. But consider who/what microsoft is trying to target - everyone else. Place yourself in their shoes, and of course it can lead to some frustration and some easy mistakes from users thinking hey I sent it this way when in fact it came in another way - EVEN WITH THE TEXT/FACEBOOK option open.
I don't think there is anything wrong with an extra swipe gesture to switch mode of communication. It is almost the same thing microsoft is doing, but instead of it being in the menu setting, it is in the face of the user. And sometimes, that makes all of the difference.
I'm not knocking the idea or the service, but asking everyone to consider how people without windows phone may view it. And that empathy is important for Microsoft to make it a success. So it's not a knock at Microsoft or their intentions.
domineus said:
thank god I didn't have to reiterate my position ad nauseum
I've been doing that since the article has been written and while I don't mind spirited debate of how windows phone is versus how it could be, it's like many users sorta either focused on Eldar's contentions, the notification, or the sms window and not the total sums of each argument.
As I said before, for us, geeks, there may not be much of an issue. But consider who/what microsoft is trying to target - everyone else. Place yourself in their shoes, and of course it can lead to some frustration and some easy mistakes from users thinking hey I sent it this way when in fact it came in another way - EVEN WITH THE TEXT/FACEBOOK option open.
I don't think there is anything wrong with an extra swipe gesture to switch mode of communication. It is almost the same thing microsoft is doing, but instead of it being in the menu setting, it is in the face of the user. And sometimes, that makes all of the difference.
I'm not knocking the idea or the service, but asking everyone to consider how people without windows phone may view it. And that empathy is important for Microsoft to make it a success. So it's not a knock at Microsoft or their intentions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly... this is how the a standard user will use it:
Im running late, hurrying to get to the station on time. Ill text my friends "hey Im on my way to the station" but he left his computer on with his FB account and the message will get send to his FB account because I forget to switch to SMS mode... I think I sended the message just fine, but sended it trough FB instead of text. Of course there is this status text saying FB, but still.
It might sound really stupid and exaggerated, but I can assure you this will happen and it will be annoying to constantly switch back to SMS if you do really have to SMS. Having a seperate click in the people hub for sent IM, sent SMS, or a pivot in the messaging hub will totally rule out these errors.
But this is ofcourse the downside... and hopefully they come up with something smart and think a bit outside of the box. The system has great potential, no doubt.
Marvin_S said:
Exactly... this is how the a standard user will use it:
Im running late, hurrying to get to the station on time. Ill text my friends "hey Im on my way to the station" but he left his computer on with his FB account and the message will get send to his FB account because I forget to switch to SMS mode... I think I sended the message just fine, but sended it trough FB instead of text. Of course there is this status text saying FB, but still.
It might sound really stupid and exaggerated, but I can assure you this will happen and it will be annoying to constantly switch back to SMS if you do really have to SMS. Having a seperate click in the people hub for sent IM, sent SMS, or a pivot in the messaging hub will totally rule out these errors.
But this is ofcourse the downside... and hopefully they come up with something smart and think a bit outside of the box. The system has great potential, no doubt.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know personally even though it says the service in a tiny font, I'll cry foul because of user error. Microsoft's main goal is to sorta cease some consensual user error not increase it. There are a variety of ideas to kick around
One comment noted a notification system in the messaging hub that indicates where the user messaged you at (like the notifications portion of the people hub) in conjunction with the swipe/pivot gestures to make a fairly good solution of which service the notification is coming from and keeping it organized.
Adding to that paradigm, I can still see how the initial chat window serves a function, as a unified way the person contacted you recently. And I have to be honest, that would be really a great and refined method of implementing a submessaging system full of notification and a clean user experience.
But to ask
does a swipe really complicate the user more than a tap setting>mode>switch service to (sms/facebook/msn)
I'm sorry, I don't see how a pivot is less complex than the system that is in mango already. replacing the finger taps for one or two pivots...
imho should've posted this write up on xda
Well the thing is MS has its vision of having everything related into a horzontal scrolling panorama. Which is absolutely great.
And they want you to use the settings menu as less as possible, so in this case yeah this switch setting (which I will be using frequently) will be more annoying since its click select close than type. While the pivot swiping to the right will get you into sms directly and the user will always stay in the same "level" or layer.
And it follows the consistency of the system this way.
You will have all the options with 1 just one pivot menu:
All (which is the way it works right now) / SMS / IM / Online
if you are on all, its the threaded view with default reply option as it is now. When swipe to the right it filters the messages down to sms only with reply as SMS.
Im the same but than reply as IM.
actally that too is a good point
Microsoft has made a unified design experience focusing on pivots and wipes with metro. The idea of tapping through settings is sadly reminescent of apple and android; somethign I don't really want to go back to anytime soon
Marvin_S said:
Exactly... this is how the a standard user will use it:
Im running late, hurrying to get to the station on time. Ill text my friends "hey Im on my way to the station" but he left his computer on with his FB account and the message will get send to his FB account because I forget to switch to SMS mode... I think I sended the message just fine, but sended it trough FB instead of text. Of course there is this status text saying FB, but still.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree that there is the potential for a problem here. Ideally, the facebook connection would be detected as idle and the OS would choose the fallback method of SMS. I haven't used it so I can't say for sure how it handles this, I'd hope it is that good. Of course, that still leaves us with the potential for problems in the window that it takes for the user to go from online to idle/away. Not nearly as big of an issue though.
It all comes down to how accurately the software can determine a user's presence. If the OS automatically sends a message via Facebook because it knows the user is actively using Facebook then I don't think there is an issue.
Personally I think ms should just separate the all and using the metro theme, sperste elm, fb chat and SMS. So you just slide. I don't use wlm, and hardly use hotmail there spam filter is awful.
Sent from my 7 Mozart T8698 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App
Actually, hotmaii filters out spam just fine for me. Quite well, actually.
On topic. I think we should wait and see how this works in its entirety. I don't think it's going to be as big of an issue as you guys think it may be.
And, separating the services defeats the purpose of the threaded convo view in the first place.
PG2G said:
SMS isn't just for important conversations. There is a reason why people run through thousands of SMS in a month nowadays, and its not because they are really important. Its because people use SMS the same way they use IM, to chat.
If you are getting something really important in an SMS (like an appointment), it might make sense to copy it over into a task or your calendar.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This.
Seriously. If you got something important to note you probably should learn to write it down or train your working memory to recall the info instead of relying so much on technology.
Marvin_S said:
Exactly... this is how the a standard user will use it:
Im running late, hurrying to get to the station on time. Ill text my friends "hey Im on my way to the station" but he left his computer on with his FB account and the message will get send to his FB account because I forget to switch to SMS mode... I think I sended the message just fine, but sended it trough FB instead of text. Of course there is this status text saying FB, but still.
It might sound really stupid and exaggerated, but I can assure you this will happen and it will be annoying to constantly switch back to SMS if you do really have to SMS. Having a seperate click in the people hub for sent IM, sent SMS, or a pivot in the messaging hub will totally rule out these errors.
But this is ofcourse the downside... and hopefully they come up with something smart and think a bit outside of the box. The system has great potential, no doubt.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, interesting my reasonable response and the response of others would be to hit the line of communication the person would check the most which arguably is a person's self phone.
Too each his own for sure, but I don't think it's out of the norm or rather is the norm that people would message someone on their phone first, especially if going somewhere to meet someone.

Remove / Disable Google and MI bloat apps

Hello everyone,
I'm used to the LineageOS on my previous phone and now I've upgraded recently to this phone but I feel my personal info too much available to Google and MI system apps and I don't want that, thats why I went to LineageOS on my previous phone but, like others custom firmwares, it have several bugs which limits the potential of the phone.
Even not using an google account I can feel my life is being spied because a few things happen:
- if someone calls me, a friend or whatever, and its not in my contacts list it asks me if its spam. For what? To send the info somewhere using the internet connection and warns others if its spam? If it reads my contacts for this it can read those for anything, like copy my whole contacts list which I'm not comfortable with and I'm not able to control. I'm afraid that later if i use the regular browser to access Gmail for instance, I'm afraid the OS is prepared to warn google that all the info that' I've shared so far belongs to that particular Google account and that phone IMEI is also used but that account. I'm crazy? Maybe, but all this is possible and I want to make it impossible.
- If i do not allow Google services from accessing my text messages APP (built-in app) i keep getting a warning from the system that something it will not go OK if I do not turn on that access from Google services. Why the hell should google services needs to access my texts? My first phone, 20 years ago, could send SMS without google, why the hell google needs to see my texts now?
The list continues but I'm not willing to loose the nice things this OS have too, but for me personal info is too valuable and I dont want to give away any information from my contacts list, SMS texts, the places I visit, my tastes and so on, all this is my personal life and no one needs to know about it, not even just for statistics. Some people on my contacts list doesn't use Android and dont want the personal phone number stored somewhere and connected to me somehow, not that Im a criminal or something like but all this combined together its like a personal "Facebook" for Google and MI to use, they know who are the persons who I connect with, who are near me at a certain period of the day, where I usually do shopping, well, all my life is being stored somewhere, and I want to end this.
Is there a way to keep the current OS and block every outgoing info coming from the phone? I've made some research and i come to this so far
- AFwall can be a solution, but how good it is?
- Removing google services is not an option using ADB, the OS will not work
- Disable google services is not working. The system keeps turning it on automatically
Please give me your feedbacks with your experiences about this security issue, I think several people feels the same way, and how did you managed a work around to this keeping the original OS.
PS: For now I didnt unlock the bootloader, but I will if the solution goes that way.
Thank you everyone
Tomalamix
Living in the age of Google, one cannot use phone & Internet without your info being collected for ad purposes or whatsoever.
Ad purposes i can live with that,. what I cant live with is my personal data being stored by a 3rd party company besides my cell operator
Ive been watching the Anti-Gapps group but it seems discontinued i guess, i think this is a task fitted for them

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