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>...encrypted apps use SMS authentication to identify and authenticate users participating in encrypted conversations

Is this true? Because it's common knowledge that SMS is insecure. So I don't understand how why anyone would want to use it for secure authentication - especially in the case of Whatsapp.

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Ask Moxie? He uses it for Signal also, and unlike WhatsApp, Signal is "sold" as secure...

I don't think anyone has implied that E2E-crypto without out-of-band key verification is bulletproof. Both WhatsApp and Signal allow you to do that.

And Telegram. If someone bothers checking this they'd also use Telegram's secret chats which do have open source end to end encryption.

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