Using Germ DM
This page was last updated on August 27, 2024
This guide explains how Germ’s technology works and how to understand and use our features to protect your experience. Some of our features and ways of interacting may be familiar to you and others may be new. Germ DM is an emerging product that is continually growing in response to your feedback, which we gladly receive by email or in our Discord.
Germ is Deprecating Support for iOS 17 and 18
Germ DM will be deprecating support for iOS 17 and 18 as they don’t ship the cryptographic primitives we need to support Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC). These older builds of iOS don’t support post-quantum TLS, so upgrading to iOS 26 or later is essential for a comprehensive defense against a cryptographically relevant quantum computer.
During the transition period, Germ apps will continue to exchange messages in classical and PQ cryptography as users upgrade their apps and iOS version.
After iOS 27 ships in September, Germ will drop support for conversations using classical cryptography. For safety, users of the latest Germ app will only receive and send messages using PQC.
To ensure you are able to continue sending and receiving messages, upgrade your iOS to at least 26.0, and your Germ app to at least 3.0.9.
