Back in July of this year, one of the core CyanogenMod team member announced that he is working on a integrated, encrypted and secure messaging system for CyanogenMod ROM users. Today, after quite a few months of development, the CyanogenMod team has flipped the switch on their encrypted messaging system. 

The CyanogenMod team has been working with Open Whisper System — known for making open source apps for encrypted texting and phone calls — on this. CyanognenMod’s implementation of encrypted text messaging is compatible with Open Whisper’s Text Secure, and will also allow users to use any third party SMS app they like without breaking the feature. Their implementation is open source as well, so that anyone with enough knowledge can have a look at their code and raise questions or appreciate them for their implementation.

Open Whisper’s lead engineer, Moxie Marlinspike, has been working with the CM team to make sure that their implementation is secure as well as compatible with their existing services. The best part about CyanogenMod’s integration is that there is no additional step to be taken by the user. Any text messages sent to other CyanogenMod or TextSecure users will automatically be encrypted. If the end user is not using any CM or TextSecure, he will receive a normal unencrypted text message.

Right now, the CM team is making this feature available in CM10.2 nightlies to test the server load and to make sure everything is working properly. Once enough testing has been done, the feature will be made available to CM11 users as well.