But what's happened since Snowden is that more and more of the room is dark.' BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/GettyĪs reported by CSO Online, Comey said: 'There has always been a corner of the room that was dark–that was where sophisticated actors like nation states operated.

Comey has formerly expressed his frustration with encrypted chat apps. In March 2017, former FBI director James Comey claimed during a speech about cybersecurity at Boston College that encryption had become 'a feature of the work of drug dealers, armed robbers, terrorists, pedophiles, and bad people of all sorts.'įormer FBI Director James Comey, pictured here while testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8, 2017. The rise of end-to-end encryption, which means the content of messages can only be read by the sender and receiver, not the company offering the service, is known to frustrate law enforcement agencies. In March last year, it added a secure video-call option and five months later announced Signal for desktop. Since launching in 2014, Signal has added numerous new features. It received a glowing security audit in November 2016 from independent analysts at the International Association for Cryptologic Research. The protocol developed by its parent company, Open Whisper Systems, has been integrated into other apps including Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. #notesforFBI (Spoiler: they already know) - Edward Snowden November 2, 2015

Signal chat