SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

??? Episode Overview
Tom Antion discusses encrypted messaging apps — primarily Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram — explaining how they differ in security, privacy, and data collection. He also touches on the concept of end-to-end encryption and why it matters for keeping messages private.
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?? Key Points
1. End-to-End Encryption Basics
• Messages are encrypted on the sender’s device and only decrypted by the receiver.
• Anyone intercepting messages in between sees only unreadable “gobbledygook.”
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2. Signal – “The Gold Standard”
• Considered the most secure and private app.
• Does not collect metadata (who you talk to, when, or how often).
• Uses “ratcheting encryption”, meaning every message has a unique encryption key — if one is hacked, others remain safe.
• Supports secure group chats.
• Recently improved privacy: users can now hide their phone number and use a username instead.
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3. WhatsApp – Owned by Meta (Facebook)
• Although it uses Signal’s encryption protocol, WhatsApp collects large amounts of metadata.
• Links to your Facebook account increase data exposure.
• Not recommended for high-security communication.
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4. Telegram – Popular but Weaker Security
• Not considered truly end-to-end encrypted for most chats.
• Experts view it as one of the least secure options among the three.
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5. Real-World Considerations
• No system is 100% safe — even encrypted platforms can be compromised through mistakes or spyware.
• Security also depends on the other person’s phone and software.
• For most small business owners, Signal offers more than enough protection from hackers or competitors.
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?? Promotions Mentioned
• Free Automation eBook: screwthecommute.com/automatefree (Version 3.0)
• Mentor Program: GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com
• Accredited Online School: IMTCVA.org – Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia
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?? Takeaway
If privacy and data protection matter to you, use Signal. Avoid WhatsApp and Telegram for sensitive communication. Always remember — no app offers perfect security.

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Episode 1052 – Encrypted Apps
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1052 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to talk about encrypted messenger apps, and we're going to talk about signal. Let's see WhatsApp and telegram and give you my opinion and a lot of other opinions on what's the best for you if you need to keep your information encrypted. In other words, secure. All right. Hope you didn't miss episode 1051. That was bananas. That was how you could do opposite of what I mostly teach and really go for something big and make a fortune at it. So that was 1051. Anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com, slash, then the episode number. That was 1051. All right. Make sure you pick up a copy of my automation e-book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Make sure you get version 3.0 because that's the latest version. And check out my mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com and my school at IMTCVA.org, which could probably save yourself a couple hundred grand and get your children or loved ones a education that's in high demand, a skill that's in high demand and as little as six months.

[00:01:46] All right. Let's talk about these messaging apps. So the the major thing that we're talking about here from the geek perspective is called end to end encryption. What that means is, is that when you send your message, it's encrypted with military grade encryption.

[00:02:09] Hard to crack. And when the other person receives it, they decrypt it. Or then they can read it. But anybody in between is not supposed to be able to read it. It's just all gobbledygook. So that's what end to end encryption is. And we're going to talk about some of the pros and cons of these different apps, and why you might pick one over the other. All right. First is signal. Now my opinion and the opinion of many you know super geeks is that signal is the gold standard. Doesn't mean it's the not got bad things. Doesn't mean it's going to change in the future and get hacked like crazy. It's just right now. So signal is on the top end of of this echelon for one particular reason. They kind of invented a lot of this stuff. But the big reason is, is they don't collect what is called metadata. In other words, they don't collect who you're talking to when you're talking to them, who you are, how long you're talking to them, and a bunch of other stuff. And another thing that they've got going for them is something I think it's called ratcheting encryption, where even if you did get hacked, every message has different encryption and decryption keys, so that if somebody did hack you, they could only get that one message that they hacked. They'd have to go through the whole jump through a million hoops to do it again for the next message or previous message.

[00:03:57] So you only got one message at risk. That's kind of why signal is considered the gold standard. And a lot of these other messaging apps, there's a bunch of them are built on top of signal software or signal. The signal, how they do it, that's cool. You'd think, well, they must be just as secure. Well, you might be thinking wrong about that because, for instance, WhatsApp is one of the biggest, most well known on earth. But the thing is it's owned by Meta or Facebook guy. And if you look at their terms of service, they store everything under the sun about you. And if you choose to connect it to your Facebook account, that's even more stuff they store about you. So if it's super high security, WhatsApp is not the place to be. And a third one that's well known but is considered one of the worst is telegram. And again, this is I'm no geek so I don't know the ins and outs and all this. I mean, you can go really deep down a rabbit hole trying to figure out or learning about this encryption stuff that's going on. I don't pretend to understand it, other than the big picture of what I'm telling you, but a lot of people think telegram doesn't give you hardly any good encryption. And one other thing about signal is they've also been able to do this on a group chat, where I don't believe the other ones can do that. And of course, it's changing all the time.

[00:05:36] So you have to keep up with this. But but pretty much at the at the present time signal is the way to go if you really need high security. But again, nothing is 100%. You know, you really need to be careful with what you do. In fact, signal was the one you heard about that they it really didn't get hacked. They sent a message from the Department of War. I think it was the Department of Defense at the time and included a journalist on the list accidentally. So that's more social. I wouldn't even call it social engineering. It was just an out and out mistake. But pretty much if you have, you know, as a small business person, the chances of, uh, hackers hitting you are much less. But you could have a, a competitor that wants your trade secrets, and maybe they've got a savvy hacker on staff and can hit you. So. So signal's the toughest one. Don't depend on WhatsApp for anything because it stores all this metadata that's also can be subpoenaed by the the government. All right. So even if they did subpoena stuff from signal, there's nothing to get. I mean, I think they can get who you are, and that's about it. Another thing a signal made an improvement on was it used to be you only had a you have to sign up with a phone number. Okay. And that was a considered a con a bad thing that your phone number was then.

[00:07:14] But they have made an improvement where now you can just use you can sign up with a phone number, but you can hide it permanently and make up a username. And the username is the only thing exposed to other people say so. So anyway, that's my little primer on this. If you need some more secretive information, transfer. Now all of this depends on the person you're sending to has the same app. All right. So if you try to send a out to the world and they don't have that app, or if they have something like Pegasus, I think Pegasus is a spyware, I think owned by the government. Right. If they got that on their phone, that could mess up the whole thing. So nothing's 100% when it comes to security. Even whispering in somebody's ear, they could have a chip in there listening to you. I don't know. All right. So anyway, that's a little bit about encrypted stuff. Again, check out my mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com and my school, IMTCVA.org, certified to operate by the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia, where you got to, you know, when you hear these other places calling themselves schools and universities, most of them are just making it up out of thin air. They did not go through this horrendous process that I went through to get the ability to have a legitimate school. So there you go. Check them all out. All right. We'll catch you all in the next episode. See you later.