Note: This post is re-blogged from my RebelMouse account.
This weekend, I am playing with the Wickr App. Wickr provides and ultra-secure mobile messaging App (for free, via iTunes):
- Quadruple, encrypted military-grade encryption of messages
- That expire (“this message has self-destructed” after elapse of a specified time
- That can only be read on specified mobile devices
- That is easy enough for anyone to use (cnet says that a “three-year-old could use [it]”)
This is a really compelling product offering in a world of ever-increasingly open exposure of privacy–not just for personal messaging, but conducting secure business transactions (like maintaining attorney-client privilege over mobile). It does not take too much of a stretch of the imagination so see Wickr as a great enterprise platform: allowing employees of a company to send SMS and MMS messages–on their own devices–without fear of interception or disclosure outside of the company.
However, I have got to think that Wickr’s real transformational value would be realized by using it as a secure messaging platform. Imagine being able to conduct mobile commerce–with complete privacy and encryption–over mobile messaging. Gone is the need for your customers to take the time to download an App. Instead they can just SMS their credit card number (or even an MMS picture of their card) to you, knowing it will disappear at the end of the transaction. mCommerce becomes as easy as texting–but with the security and encryption previously only enjoyed by our military and intelligence services. This would be really exciting to explore. I hope the folks at Wickr open up APIs to try this out.
Until then, kudos for a great–free product–to help us protect our privacy.
