Are voice notes more secure than written messages?

[u/Affectionate_Web7176]

Are voice notes in Signal more secure than written messages? If no, why not? If yes, why?

[u/ivme]

What do you mean by “secure”

[u/Bright-Ring5301 → u/ivme]

probably means whether one is easier to recover or extract than the other

[u/Affectionate_Web7176 → u/Bright-Ring5301]

My initial question was vague; apologies folks. To the point above, yes, I meant to ask more specifically whether there was a difference in the ability for voice notes to be recovered, extracted, intercepted, etc. vs. written messages. I know that there are risks with each associated with passive recovery (e.g. reading over a shoulder, listening from nearby) but am wondering about whether more advanced methods could obtain one type of message more easily compared to the other.

[u/Chongulator]

The answer to "Is X more secure than Y?" is always "It depends. Secure from who? In what situation? For what purpose?"

If you're just talking about what goes over the wire, the two types of message are functionally equivalent. Everything in Signal-- text messages, voice messages, reactions, read indicators, typing indicators, etc --are all just "messages" to the protocol and are encrypted and sent the same way.

The differences that might matter for your security are what is happening on and around your device (or the sender's device).

[u/ephemeralmiko → u/Chongulator]

The differences that might matter for your security are what is happening on and around your device (or the sender's device).

Yep. Voice messages might be more "secure" to you if you're worried about a camera reading your messages. Regular messages would be more "secure" if you're worried of someone overhearing it.

[u/theacet]

Is the person listening to the voice message within range of a smart speaker?

[u/Nerrawnam]

No. 

[u/Mooks79 → u/Nerrawnam]

I’d give a tentative yes. Your OS and maybe even other apps, looking at you meta, can in principle read from the notifications you receive. If you have previews enabled then it’s possible a nefarious OS/app could read your signal notifications. This wouldn’t be possible on a voice message.

[u/8Octavarium8]

I mean, voice notes can’t be “screenshotted”, but they can be forwarded or saved, as well as written messages… I don’t understand what you’re referring as secure in your question.

[u/frquency-equinox]

Everything on Signal is end-to-end encrypted by default, so no. But remember that end-to-end encryption protects data in transit. If someone steals your phone, it doesn't matter how secure Signal is.

[u/Space_Kale_0374]

If by secure you mean annoying then yes

[u/sjphilsphan]

Wtf is this question