Category: FAQ

Safety tips on SafeChat

by Adminin FAQ

Cifas, a leader in fraud prevention, has published an article about “How to Protect Yourself Against Online Fraud”. We would like to repost for our users references:

Stay safe from online scams: 5 top tips

1) Check your social media privacy settings

You can prevent online identity fraud by making sure you have your privacy settings on your social media set appropriately. Do not share information with people you don’t know.

2) Be wary of unsolicited messages

You can reduce your vulnerability to identity crime by being wary of unsolicited emails, calls and texts asking you for information about your passwords, logins or other security details.

3) Choose strong and different passwords

You can stay safer online by using strong passwords. You could, for example, use three random words, and also use capitals, numbers and punctuation in the password. Make sure you use different passwords for different accounts. 

4) Update your device’s software

Make sure you have updated the software on your devices. When that pop-up says ‘update now’, click or tap to accept.

5) Be careful when using public Wi-Fi

Always be cautious when using public Wi-Fi. You can use it for general browsing, but never use it for shopping or banking.

Source: https://www.cifas.org.uk/services/identity-protection/how-to-stay-safe-from-online-scams

How to Setting privacy on SafeChat

  1. Open More (…) tab 
  2. Choose Privacy & Security
  3. Navigate to Privacy: 
  • Block List: List of blocked users which were blocked by you. You can remove them from this list
  • Allow blocked users to view my profile: If this ON, it means that your profile will be seen by everyone included blocked people
  • Allow to receive messages from strangers: If this ON, it means that you will get messages from unknown users, some of them maybe scammers. Keep yourself safe.
  • Allow others to request friend: If this ON, it means that people can request you to be a friend. Then you can accept or reject it if you want. While waiting for your feedback, they can send you messages as strangers if you allow them to.
  • My profile Privacy Settings: Manage how people view your personal information (including searching by Email/Phone, Birthday, Year of birth, Status, Location, Bio, Friends List, Followers List, Following List). There are 3 level of settings:
    • Everyone: Means every people who can reach your profile link can see your information
    • Friends: Means who are in your friends list can see your profile in detail
    • Only me: Means nobody can see your profile in detail

How to avoid scammers and fraudsters 

Nigerian scams

https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/types-of-scams/unexpected-money/nigerian-scamshttps://www.scamwatch.gov.au/types-of-scams/unexpected-money/nigerian-scams

For more information: 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajdellinger/2019/11/25/anatomy-of-a-scam-nigerian-romance-scammer-shares-secrets/#775700676385

FAQ / Secure Chat

by Adminin FAQ
What is Secure Mode and Normal Mode for a Conversation?
When you start a conversation, the setting is in Secure Mode by default. You can easily change to Normal Mode if you wish. 

In Secure Mode: All messages will be marked with  a “lock” icon. It means that messages are encrypted by an End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) algorithm. Only you and members in the conversation can read the messages. You are SAFE when your chat includes sensitive content. 
You are safe, but you may experience some disadvantages such as: 

1. Slower speed: We need to decrypt your messages by a Shared Key. This may cause the speed while chatting to be affected. 

2. Searching messages: It’s not exactly for search results due to messages being encrypted.

3. Unable decrypt encrypted message due to Change account Password: We use a Shared Key, which is associated with Account Password. This means that if you change or reset to a new Password, some disadvantage in decrypting encrypted messages may occur. 

In Normal Mode: The speed in sending a message will not be affected but you may be at risk because the Man-in-the-Middle (MitM, black hat) can attach in between to pull out your important messages.
How secure is SafeChat?
When you start a conversation in SafeChat, it’s set up in Secure Mode by default with  E2EE. This means that no one except you and members in the conversation can read the messages (even SafeChat can’t read).

See more for details at (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_encryption).
Why do my messages change to “Encrypted”?
When the message is unable to be decrypted it will have status “Encrypted”
Because you are chatting in Secure Mode and you or someone related to the conversation has changed password. It makes you unable to match the Shared Key to decrypt the messages.
What should I do to see “Encrypted” messages?
When you see the message changed to “Encrypted,” you will be unable to keep sending messages. To decrypt encrypted messages and keep chatting with your friends we suggest these  ways to recover the messages:

1. Input your old password in case you have changed or reset the password.

2. Ask any of your friends in the encrypted chat to open the SafeChat app to the conversation online. Our system will recover as many of the messages as possible.

3. In case all users of the conversation changed their passwords, we won’t be able to recover the messages.  We recommend you keep chatting by activating the Normal Mode for the time being to keep communicating with your friends. You can also choose reset the conversation and keep chatting with Secure Mode (the old messages will be cleared) 

4. A short way, you can contact the group’s admin to remove you from the group and re-add you with allow to see history. (for group chat only).
I can’t read my message after changing my password. What should I do?
Please click on the Question mark icon next to “Encrypted” then follow the directions.