Lion Cipher Lab
Set up private, encrypted messaging with Signal
- Foundations
- Beginner
- ~20-30 min
- Free · no account required
Why it matters
Most of the messaging you do every day is far more open than it feels. A regular SMS text is readable by your phone carrier and anyone who can intercept it; many chat apps encrypt messages in transit but can still read them on their own servers, which means the company (and anyone who compels or breaches it) can too. End-to-end encryption flips that: your message is scrambled on your device and can only be unscrambled on the other person's, so no carrier, no server, and no eavesdropper in between can read it -- only the two of you. Signal is the free, open-source app that made this the…
What you'll learn
- end-to-end encryption (E2EE)
- private messaging
- installing and registering Signal
- verifying safety numbers
- defending against man-in-the-middle attacks
- disappearing messages
- Signal PIN and Registration Lock
- understanding metadata
- endpoint security awareness
- everyday messaging privacy
Steps in this lab
- What end-to-end encryption is -- and how it differs from a normal text
- Install Signal (from the official source only)
- Register with your phone number
- Verify a safety number -- the step that defeats an impostor in the middle
- Turn on disappearing messages
- Set a Signal PIN and turn on Registration Lock
- Understand the limits: metadata, your phone, and backups
- What you just did -- and how to think about it