Destructive messaging app Confide now easier to use, adds support for photo and document sharing

Shawn Knight

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app lets send screenshot-proof messages photos screenshot confidential snapchat confide screenshot-proof screen cap screencap

Destructive messaging applications like Snapchat and Wickr grant its users some peace of mind with regard to privacy but they all share a common weakness in that they allow the recipient to capture screenshots. Although most apps do notify the sender when a screenshot is taken, the damage has already been done.

Confide, a mobile messaging app that launched in January 2014, recently expanded on a clever concept it came up with called wanding that makes capturing screenshots somewhat useless. Here is how it works.

Any message received via Confide is only visible line-by-line. To view content, you need to tap and hold at the top of a message and slide your finger down. As you do this, the line that your finger is on will be revealed while everything else remains hidden.

Capturing a screenshot thus only reveals the line that your finger was on when the action occurred. What’s more, the app’s creators have managed to completely disable the screenshot function in the Android version. And in iOS, once you take a screenshot, you are booted from the app and the message disappears forever (the recipient is also notified of your sneaky deed).

All content is end-to-end user encrypted and, like other apps, messages vanish once they have been viewed.

Up to this point, Confide’s wanding feature worked on a word-by-word basis. The new line-by-line reveal is much more convenient. Furthermore, the update adds the ability to send photos and documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF are all supported), making it much more useful to enterprise clients.

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It's probably only me but I don't understand the sense of things like this. The message still has to travel from the the source to the recipient, what if it gets intercepted along the way?
 
It's probably only me but I don't understand the sense of things like this. The message still has to travel from the the source to the recipient, what if it gets intercepted along the way?

It's end-to-end encrypted. Meaning when you press send, your phone encrypts the data before transmission and it's decrypted on the receiver's device.

Now if that software is audited, or what kind of algorithm they're using is unknown as well as the key/certificate/password generation/sharing.
 
It's end-to-end encrypted. Meaning when you press send, your phone encrypts the data before transmission and it's decrypted on the receiver's device.

Now if that software is audited, or what kind of algorithm they're using is unknown as well as the key/certificate/password generation/sharing.
Thanks
 
I don't get this. You can prevent the phone from taking screenshots, but how are you going to stop the user on the other end from using a video camera.
 
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