Ultra-Private Messaging Spreads To Apple Mac, Windows, Linux Desktops

A mobile messaging application designed for the ultra-privacy-conscious user has now moved to the desktop as well.

Wickr, which offers a free text, video, and picture messaging service for iOS and Android that "leaves no trace" of the messages, today launched free versions of its Wickr Messenger application for Mac, Windows, and Linux machines, extending the iOS and Android app to the desktop. The app's messaging is synced across multiple devices employed by the user. Messages sent via the app self-destruct and are bound to the device, and Wickr doesn't collect any metadata.

Nico Sell, CEO of Wickr, says the desktop versions of Wickr don't rely on the pervasive SMTP email protocol. "We're not using SMTP, because there are a lot of things wrong with it. Even if you're using PGP over SMTP, you're still stuck with metadata that can tell who is talking to whom and when," Sell says. With Wickr, "you are anonymous and you can't tell who you are talking to, when, and how often."

Encryption efforts have been exploding of late. The widely deployed mobile messaging app WhatsApp last month announced that it would employ end-to-end encryption across the board. WhatsApp is installed on hundreds of millions of mobile devices, so the encrypted messaging move would be massive in its scope. The company is using Textsecure, an open-source tool from non-profit Open Whisper Systems.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), meanwhile, will begin offering free SSL domain verification certificates by June of 2015 to help spur more encrypted HTTPS traffic on the Net. And the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) has officially called for encryption to be the norm on the Net.

Wickr has even bigger plans than text messaging, however. The goal of the desktop expansion is to replace email altogether for users who want secure email that isn't archived anywhere, according to Sell. "For us, this is really about being the No. 1 app on your phone. The one you use most often, and taking over email. [It] may seem counterintuitive, [but] this is a strategic mobile move," because the app can be used across multiple devices.

Sell says her company is using the app in lieu of email for the most part. "We still use email, but only when you want to archive [messages]… Only 1 percent of my conversations" are traditional email now, she says.

"Email servers can tell a lot about an organization" if they are exposed, she says.

Wickr's app allows messages to appear as a traditional email: "It will look like an email to my mom."

[The era of encrypted communications may have finally arrived. Internet Architecture Board chairman Russ Housley explains what the IAB's game-changing statement about encryption means for the future of the Net: Q&A: Internet Encryption As The New Normal.]

Sell says the best way to employ Wickr's new desktop mode is to first invite 10 friends and family members. "It's optimized today for best friends and family," she says. The desktop app includes Wickr's famed "self-destruct" timer for messages so that they are never archived, as well as a new shredding feature that forensically wipes files from the hard drive and RAM. Like the mobile app, location, time, and device ID information are automatically deleted.

Wickr plans to provide voice and video as well, akin to a Skype-type service. To date, there have been 4 million downloads of Wickr in 196 countries, and millions of messages are transmitted each day.

Meanwhile, the company also has a new slogan: "Escape the Internet."