How to exchange private texts

This is a text automatically translated from Italian. If you appreciate our work and if you like reading it in your language, consider a donation to allow us to continue doing it and improving it.

As exchanging private texts without prying eyes? For example, if we use an end-to-end encrypted email such as ProtonMail but our interlocutor instead uses only Gmail And Facebook? The reasons that can push you to use a service for exchanging private texts are multiple: for example, we may have to send important login credentials and we absolutely do not trust Google and company.

Then there are countless reasons why two people need or want to share some private texts and we think that no one needs to give explanations if they want the texts they share to be there. only the person concerned can read it.

If you think about it carefully It's not a modern quirk nor the madness of some paranoid. THE letter seals they have existed almost always as well as the encryption ¹. It is not clear why we take it for granted that writing on the internet is right and normal someone can read or analyze what we are writing. No it is not. Just as it is not normal to be semi-forced to accept Cookies bulky and be followed everywhere to view a site.

Why and how to exchange private texts?

The Alternatives it exists precisely for this reason. To make as many people as possible understand that these are not the case conspiracy paranoia but rights that we are giving up for no reason. So let's see how we can send private texts to anyone without worrying that they will be analyzed. The alternatives that we will propose to you are: Open source and more importantly, encryption is zero-knowledge so the server can't in no way know what our texts contain!

Privatebin

Open source

Probably the absolute best way to send private texts is to use the project Open source ² called PrivateBin. There are several instances of it (servers that have installed it for you to use).

We suggest you use PrivateBin.net and of ZeroBin.net. The latter even has a onion address (which is used with Tor) to increase security even further.

There is also theInstance managed by devol and you can find it at: privatebin.devol.it. One of the advantages compared to the official one is that if you want you can create a text that never expires so that it can be used and linked within a blog/site.

Also if you want to self-destruct the text, theInstance the original has a maximum duration of 1 month, while that of the devols lasts 1 year.

The use is very simple: write the text and decide how soon it expires. You can also set a password. Give the link to whoever you want and voilà, you're already done.

If instead you need to send an image or perhaps a document (up to a maximum of 50MB) you can also try the tool (Open source ³) offered by ethical server Riseup: share.riseup.net. It also exists on onion address.

Then there are less safe methods but equally interesting. For example, if you have to share some code with someone you could use hastebin.com, a project Open source ⁴ well done and very simple to use.

APPLICAZIONE PER ANDROID

Esiste un’applicazione per Android che utilizza il server di PrivateBin.net per gestire e mandare più facilmente i testi privati. Non è niente di più che una sorta di client per PrivateBin che utilizza i server di PrivateBin.net per funzionare.

download from GitHub

Infomaniak kPaste

Open source

We often talk about Infomaniak, is a Swiss company that offers many alternatives Open source really interesting to protect your privacy. Many of their services are paid, with which they also finance the free ones as it is kPaste. It's a project Open source ⁵ that he uses the Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) algorithm and so it is end-to-end encrypted. Very safe and really simple to use, you can make the message last up to a month and you can have it deleted after reading.

Yopass

Open source

Another alternative Open source ⁶ it's called Yopass. Very simple to use and with many options available. In fact, you can delete your message after an hour, after a day or after a week. You can also decide that it is downloaded only once. Finally, it is possible to automatically generate a password or enter it manually!

Share a secret – One Time

Open source

Share confidential text with the possibility of using passwords and allowing the link to expire after a few minutes, hours, or days. It's software Open source ⁷.

Share a secret!

Open source

Great tool Open source ⁸ with lots of options available. Unlike the others, however, you can only generate a link that immediately self-destructs. Very useful in many situations and less useful in others.

Retriever

Open source

Another tool Open source slightly different from the previous ones. When you enter the site you will be offered a unique URL to share with someone. The person who receives this URL will find a box inside where they can write whatever they want. After this person presses Encrypt will receive a URL to share with the message. The special thing is that no one else will be able to open this last URL but only you from Browsers that you initially used to share the first URL.

We understand that it seems like a bit of a messy reasoning but in reality in practice it is quite simple: send a URL on which someone can write whatever they want. This person writes the secret message and then presses Encrypt and enters the new URL there. Only you can read this last link, if opened on others Browsers will give error.

Pad

Another interesting method that you can try are the so-called pad. Real notepads to share with whoever you want. Unlike the previous ones, these pads are collaborative. They are therefore very useful if you need to have text that is shared but also editable by anyone who accesses it. They are very simple to use and each pad corresponds to a unique address that is impossible to decipher or deduce. Eventually, you can also decide to share it read-only.
Some projects that offer the free collaborative pad I am Devol, Cysts And Framasoft.

As an alternative to this, if you need to send images or files in addition to simple written text, we recommend that you read our article on alternatives to WeTransfer.

1. Caesar cipher And The cryptographer and Big Brother[↩]
2. https://github.com/PrivateBin/PrivateBin[↩]
3. https://0xacab.org/riseup/share/up1-cli-client-nodejs#README[↩]
4. https://github.com/seejohnrun/haste-client[↩]
5. kPaste on GitHub[↩]
6. Yopass on GitHub[↩]
7. source code by Share a secret – One Time[↩]
8. source code by Share a secret![↩]

Join communities