[liberationtech] About "Confide"

[Karl Fogel]

Mustafa Al-Bassam <mus at musalbas.com> writes:
>So yesterday a very user-friendly mobile application called "Confide"
>was released that claims to be "your off-the-record messenger"[1]. It
>has been getting a ton of press attention recently and has raised $1.9m
>in seed funding[2].
>
>It claims "with end-to-end encryption and disappearing messages, Confide
>is bringing off-the-record conversations online".
>
>What do people think of this?

FWIW, Confide was already on my list of apps that make promises that (by
definition) they can't keep:

  http://www.rants.org/2013/06/09/privacy-promises-and-client-side-betrayal/

There is no such thing as guaranteed self-deleting messages,
no-screenshot messages, etc.  These are promises that no app can make,
because underneath every app is an operating system that the app doesn't
control.  If the operating system decides to save the message, or take
the screenshot, there is nothing the app can do about it.

This isn't about open source vs closed source.  It's about the
fundamental nature of running software on top of other software.

I wish that app makers wouldn't promise otherwise, but apparently
there's a lot of money to be made spreading this particular myth.

-Karl