Amid Apple's FBI Fight, App Developers Are Ramping Up Encryption
Amid Apple's FBI Fight, App Developers Are Ramping Up
Encryption
By Jeremy Kahn March 10, 2016 — 7:40 AM PST
While Apple fights the demands of the FBI over encrypted
iPhone data, the companies that help users communicate privately between such
devices are working hard to dramatically increase their methods of security.
Wire, a messaging app backed by Skype co-founder Janus
Friis, is the latest to add end-to-end encryption and secure video
communication to its service, the company announced today, as it tries to gain
traction against rival communications platforms.
The service, which rolled out in December 2014, has tried
to distinguish itself with a sleek, uncluttered design and its ability to
operate on any device, desktop to mobile, and across all major operating
systems.
But Wire has so far lagged far behind competing messaging
services in attracting active users. WhatsApp has 1 billion active monthly
users, Kik has 200 million, and Telegram recently hit its 100 million
milestone. Snapchat claims 100 million active daily users. While Wire does not
report its monthly user figures, Friis, who serves as Wire’s executive
chairman, said in an interview that new user sign-ups were running at about
150,000 to 200,000 per month.
Offering video calls and end-to-end encryption, both
already available on other messaging platforms, is one way to narrow that gap,
although Friis said Wire was not adding them just to keep up with the
competition. "Video calls have been the top requested feature from our
users," Friis said. "It is also something that takes quite a lot of
engineering effort to get right across many platforms."
Modern Age
In an interview at his office in London’s Mayfair --
where a massive sculpture of a handgun mounted with a riding saddle by the
Hungarian artist Kata Legardy confronts visitors the moment they step off the
elevators -- Friis said that Wire was not seeking to address a particular
shortcoming in existing messaging platforms.
"That’s not the way we look at things," he
said. "What we thought is let’s create something that is completely
created for the modern age, for mobile devices with big screens. A simple to
use app that is beautifully designed but also respects the privacy of your
communication, but is not a specialized app."
Wire seems in many ways to be following a similar
marketing playbook to that used by Telegram, which has grown rapidly since its
debut in 2013. Telegram touts its encryption, appealing to users increasingly
concerned about government surveillance. It also presented itself as a kind of
anti-business, with its founder, Pavel Durov, saying he had no plans to monetize
the platform and would never sell advertising on it.
Similarly, Friis said Wire would never create an
advertising-based business model. Instead, he said, the platform might charge
for certain premium services in the future.
Targeted Advertising
Wire is presenting encryption as a way to safeguard
communications not only from the prying eyes of government spies, but also as a
way to shield personal information from businesses that want to mine messaging
traffic to send users targeted advertising. "There is a growing demand for
spaces online that are free from the interference of advertising," Friis
said, criticizing the way companies such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google use search
terms to sell advertising. "Everything you do, especially when it’s your
private, personal, professional communication, does not have to be
tracked."
Headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, Wire’s main
development team -- about 50 people, according to Friis -- is based in Berlin.
Wire’s co-founders all have deep tech experience, with chief executive officer
Jonathan Christensen and lead designer Priidu Zilmer, both alumni of Skype, and
chief technology officer Alan Duric is a veteran of Norwegian voice-of-Internet
pioneer Telio. The company has also made key hires from Apple, Microsoft and
Nokia.
For its end-to-end encryption model, Wire is using
standard encryption protocols: Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) for video and
voice calls and the Axolotl protocol for messaging traffic. This differentiates
it from Telegram, which developed an encryption standard of its own, called
MTProto, that has since been criticized as potentially unreliable by
cybersecurity researchers.
Wire also says that it’s unique among messaging platforms
in automatically encrypting all its communications, including voice and video
calls, not just text.
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