Meet the Developers Who Want To Build the Next Snapchat

Nerval's Lobster writes "Our lives online come with perils, whether from the NSA checking up on our digital communications, or the possibility of the wrong e-message going viral. Twitter, Facebook, Google, Instagram, and other social networks have collected all sorts of personal data about us, where we've been, what we're saying, what we like, and our friends. No wonder the idea of ephemeral messages — such as those sent via Snapchat and other services — is beginning to resonate, attracting lots of startups who want to service that very need. These creators of self-destructing message apps claim they don't care about monetization, and that their products are secure — but as so many apps from other startups have demonstrated, security is often a very porous thing, and government agencies are more than happy to fire off a warrant to see unread messages stored on a server. Lots of developers want to become the Snapchat (if it means they can take a multi-billion-dollar buyout), but in the case of vaporizing messages, they're tiptoeing into tricky territory."

Comments

Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

> No wonder the idea of ephemeral messages ... self-destructing message

The entire concept is stupid. Screenshots. Or use your camera to photograph the screen if you must. Or run it in am emulator and do a screenshot of that.

If you send something to someone, you should assume that they can keep a copy of it. Dont like that? Dont send it.

Re:Stupid

[madbrain]

That is not end to end encryption. You would need S/MIME, PGP, or other technologies for that, where the message itself is encrypted.
The fact that the transport may be encrypted is pretty much irrelevant since neither the sender nor recipient have full control over the network hops that may be between them. If you send a message to a TLS-enabled host, and it then gets remailed using plaintext, or the recipient downloads it using plaintext, the TLS is not very useful.

Re:Stupid

[locofungus]

And if the recipient forwards it unencrypted then S/MIME or PGP are not very useful.

I was envisioning each person running their own mailserver (as I do) so that the only place mail would be unencrypted would be on their local machine.

Once you're in that position everything gets encrypted and it's invisible to the end user.

Why?

[rebelwarlock]

Let's reword the headline to say what was really meant:

Attention whoring for an unoriginal idea.

I can't wait

[AlphaBro]

I can't wait for the social media bubble to pop.

Levels of security...

[Karmashock]

Inherent in security is what you are trying to keep something secure from... A child safety lock on a container of pills is an example of this... it keeps the pills out of the reach of small children that lack the strength or mental capacity to open the bottle. Once you get old enough to open the bottle it probably isn't as dangerous because you're probably not stupid enough to eat them like m&ms at that point.

There is security on ATMs and banking systems to keep thieves out internal or external. But they do not secure the system from government oversight or even employees of the bank.

Its about trust and control.

Who do you want kept out? What do you want controlled? Itemize it all. Then design your system.

If you wish to keep the NSA out... you need to decentralize. The NSA thrives on exploiting centralized information systems. Decentralize and they have to compromise a cloud of shifting unreliable systems each with information of no to very limited value. They won't do it. Its too much work for too little return.

If you want to keep some person you sent pictures of your genitals from uploading the information to a public gallery... Well... best option is to not send that message. But if you really feel you must... something like snap chat or similar will work against not terribly bright people. Anyone with a clue shouldn't have any trouble finding a program on the net advertised as being specifically able to scrape messages out of those programs.

So yeah... NSA... decentralize... stop that person from sharing your genital photos around... good luck. Just don't do it, dummy.

Is it just me

[korbulon]

Or does it seem that "serious" tech development has been largely superseded by much more frivolous stuff like social networks, casual gaming, and crap like snapchat? They have their place, sure, but the prices being thrown about for what are after all pretty basic applications are absurd. Seems to me that much of the "value" of these companies is 99% hat and 1% cattle. Exasperated by these tech bubbles - because that's what all this is - they exalt a few lucky morons and do so much damage when they pop.

Re:Is it just me

[JaredOfEuropa]

The absurd prices aren't for the apps (FB could build their own version of SnapChat in an overnight coding orgy), but for the user base. It's the 90s tech bubble and "eyeballs" all over again, with the difference that the users aren't just targets for advertisement this time, but also sources of valuable data (and numbers to keep the owners of overinflated public stock placated).

Oh, and meanwhile there's still plenty of serious tech development going on. Tech rarely makes the news though these days, unless it leads to a nice payday for the founders when Google, Apple or FB decide to step in.

Here's one useful thing in this thread

[trawg]

... because I can't see anything anywhere else (wtf is this post?) I figured maybe this might be worth mentioning:

Yesterday Moxie Marlinspike announced a new version of TextSecure: https://whispersystems.org/blo...

TextSecure is an encrypted messaging tool - currently for Android, but iOS is in the works. It is open source and has a high focus on privacy and security.

I encourage people to check it out - if you want to Snapchat securely and privately, then using an open source tool that isn't maintained or built by some giant corporatrox that is simply trying to get bought out by Facebook might be a good idea.