Hi all! I’d like to request suggestions for a secure messaging app, ideally that doesn’t require mobile phone for registration, to stay connected to my family In Russia.

The country wages war on the Internet, messengers and VPNs. Options are blocked one by one, and one can’t register in Signal because numbers that send registration confirmation from Signal are blocked…

I’d need an app that allows group chats, calls, media attachments and audio messages, easy enough for older people would be able to install. Ideally, something niche enough it won’t be blocked right away…

It’s a lot of requirements, but I hope something like this exists and would be very grateful for any recommendations.

Android / iPhone / desktop.

  • petrescatraian@libranet.de
    0·
    2 days ago

    Tbh I’d probably use snail mail letters for anything private on the theory that the RU govt doesn’t have the resources to open all the envelopes

    Hahahaha!

    I’m not a Russian, rather Romanian. But I heard stories how all the mail coming from the outside was checked and “vetted for anything suspicious” at the border during communism. Since we and USSR were on the same team I suppose they did the same. And how the way the public institutions work barely changed, nowadays, given the current situation, I expect them to return to that practice.

    So yeah, I wouldn’t trust snail mail with anything sensitive.

    • leriotdelac@lemmy.zipOP
      0·
      2 days ago

      Spot on haha. I doubt they have time to read every single snail mail, but I won’t ever write anything important in a snail mail sent to Russia.

    • solrize@lemmy.ml
      0·
      2 days ago

      Well start with a few not-that-private letters to check for evidence of their being opened. What happens with ordinary email by the way?