This sounds like a worse version of <a href="https://www.surespot.me/" rel="nofollow">https://www.surespot.me/</a><p>Surespot is open source (including the server software too), and doesn't charge you money for "advanced" features like sending images.<p>And surespot actually exists and is usable today.<p>Donate your money that way instead: <a href="https://www.surespot.me/contribute.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.surespot.me/contribute.html</a><p>(not affiliated, just a very happy user)<p>[EDIT] He details exactly how it works here: <a href="https://www.surespot.me/documents/how_surespot_works.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.surespot.me/documents/how_surespot_works.html</a>
Just adding another open-source (Android only, for now) competitor from WhisperSystems (Moxie Marlinspike), including a secure-voice app:<p><a href="https://whispersystems.org/" rel="nofollow">https://whispersystems.org/</a><p><a href="https://github.com/WhisperSystems" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/WhisperSystems</a><p>Moxie is supposedly working on an iOS version. The Android version is fairly seamless and can still contact users not using the app -- wire insecure. The local storage is encrypted, regardless of your contact -- again, you run the risk of wiretapping, if the other end does not share the use of the app.
This is a terrible thing that they are trying to cash in on a closed, centralized solution based on proprietary GUI for only iOS / Android.
I'm very disappointed and thought the TPB guys would no better. Sad day...
Worst part is that people will fund them withing 24h!<p>But I guess just like 1 in 2 Kickstarter project, it's a quick sell so you can eat, but this brings nothing to the security/privacy table unless they come clean...
....why not just run OTR on top of Jabber? It's pretty surveillance proof and they are applications for iOS/Android that support all of that.<p>I fail to see the point.
I agree with everyone that this should be open-source, but at least this has one benefit over the other proprietary solutions out there: This is not just a secure messenger, but also a beautiful one. If you want to convince - and I do - those who use Facebook Messenger and iMessage and don't necessarily consider their privacy, it needs to have a great user experience on top of the technical foundation. On the other hand, if it gets that and ends up being open-sourced, it would be a great fit for Aral Balkan's Codename Prometheus: <a href="http://aralbalkan.com/notes/codename-prometheus/" rel="nofollow">http://aralbalkan.com/notes/codename-prometheus/</a>
I wonder how that can be "surveillance-proof". Even with e2e-encryption any product using central servers can still see who is chatting with whom, who's in your address book and what IP address your phone is connecting from. That's exactly the meta-data Verizon got accused of sharing. They might be of The Pirate Bay-fame and not share this with the NSA voluntarily, but they're not immune to being hacked or infiltrated.
This clearly highlights one of the big challenges for mass market surveillance proof apps - there are too many obscure alternatives (unless one counts iMessage as one of them). Getting the critical mass of users (similar to what Whatsapp and Line accomplished) will be a huge challenge.
No more re-inventing the wheel!<p>BitMessage!<p><a href="https://bitmessage.org/wiki/Main_Page" rel="nofollow">https://bitmessage.org/wiki/Main_Page</a>
This is probably a rookie question, but how is this surveillance proof, and how would it be different from iMessage? The article mentions "Apple recently publicly stated that its iMessage service is encrypted end-to-end". Isn't something that is encrypted end-to-end surveillance proof?
CyanogenMod and Moxie are working on something similar, I believe - end to end encryption with PGP, but it may work with more than just one chat app:<p><a href="https://plus.google.com/+CyanogenMod/posts/23vfN2qdZTu" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/+CyanogenMod/posts/23vfN2qdZTu</a><p><a href="https://plus.google.com/+CyanogenMod/posts/jnZSBV96wxU" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/+CyanogenMod/posts/jnZSBV96wxU</a>
I wish Google would just do something like this themselves with Hangouts.<p>I don't even think they aren't doing this because they plan to offer ads related to Hangouts chats or whatever. I think it has more to do with the "features" of Hangouts, such as saving your logs - forever. Think of it like how Facebook wants to keep all the data forever so they can do something like the Timeline.<p>I get there can be some benefits if the chats run through their servers and everything is stored, but I'm not sure they are that huge, especially now, when all governments are seeking direct access, or to scoop up everything from all users. I think that's why Google's priority in the future should be end to end encryption for users, for most of their services.<p>I also hate that because governments are abusing their powers, we are forced to regress on convenience and make the services "worse" so we can be more secure. But who knows, maybe this is for the best, and the Internet is meant to evolve into something a lot more locked down and secure.