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[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/08/internet-security

The Economist
Babbage
Aug 5th, 2012

ASK Nico Sell who makes use of her and Robert Statica's Wickr 
secure-communication app and she can honestly say, "We don't know who 
our users are." The free iPhone and iPad app uses well-tested 
strong-encryption techniques to prevent anyone snooping on text 
messages, images and video, or voicemail exchanged between its users. 
Accounts are created on the device and checked with a central registry 
to prevent duplicate names, but no passwords or other identifying 
information passes to Wickr's servers. Only Wickr users may send 
messages to other Wickr users, and the software can be set to allow 
communications only from a preset white list.

Ms Sell says that adopters are particularly fond of Wickr's 
self-destruct timer, which irretrievably scrambles the transmission 
after a period, from seconds to days, set by the sender, and which 
cannot be overridden once transmitted. A sender may delete a message at 
any time after sending, too, removing it from the recipient's account.

Wickr is part of a growing backlash against the culture of constant 
sharing and permanent archiving that Facebook, Twitter and other social 
networks encourage—and often expand without consulting with users. 
Another app, called Path, limits one's social circle to no more than 150 
people, matching "Dunbar's number", as evolutionary anthropologists call 
the limit to the how many people one can maintain stable social 
relationships with (which may explain why the Path's original limit of 
50 did not stand the test of time).

The Pair app is aimed at love birds and does not automatically 
self-destruct when a relationship breaks up, though its creators will 
destroy the exchanged messages and pictures on request. The Snapchat app 
sends pictures, which are automatically deleted no later than ten 
seconds after receipt, as set by the sender. Snapchat, however, is still 
vulnerable to a screen capture by the recipient (he need only hold down 
the "home" button and press and release the "standby" button on an iOS 
device). With Wickr, if the device's built-in accelerometer detects it 
is in motion while viewing a photo or video, the screen goes black. Ms 
Sell says that her firm designed the app to make it easy to use, even 
for her septuagenarian mother with whom she exchanges texts via the app. 
The hardest part of using Wickr is picking and remembering a password.

[...]