It combines unrestricted access and end-to-end encrypted collaboration features in a single app, no matter where users are located.
To help solve this problem, Wickr has announced the general availability of its secure open access protocol to circumvent censorship for all Wickr Me and Wickr Pro (via admin console) users. As a result, some customers have to deploy outside of their region (such as India), to avoid having UDP packets get rate-limited and their tools rendered unusable. They restrict various end points and UDP, so all traffic goes through them for monetization or tracking purposes. In some countries such as Saudi Arabia and UAE, says Wickr, enterprise deployments may be difficult because of the national Telco's monopoly over networks. Increasing censorship, blocking and other restrictions in many world regions have left internet users unprotected because secure communications are banned. "We are always planning to do more," Sell said.As the balkanization of the internet continues, traveling businessmen are left with concerns over the integrity of their communications from some regions of the globe. A paid-for premium version of Wickr is in the works that will let users buy specific features, such as extending the time period before data is deleted. "They fixed a lot of things."īut Wickr is ready to go: A free version is available Apple's App Store, and an Android application under development. "I've had a number of my hacker friends break it," she said. So far, Wickr has been poked and prodded by well-known computer security pros, said cofounder Nico Sell. Word processing programs can note who has looked or edited a document and the filer server where it has been stored. Metadata can reveal more information than perhaps the person who took the photo or sent the file really wants to share.Ĭameras, for example, will often include data such as GPS information, times and dates. Wickr also tackles the privacy problems concerning metadata, or information about a file or photograph that is often included as part of the default settings of an application. Even then, five wrong attempts at the password will cause Wickr to erase itself. The only real way to see something sent to a Wickr user would be to steal the person's phone. Statica said no information is retained by Wickr about what files users are sending and to whom. Only encrypted data passes through Wickr's servers, and log files are deleted. "We don't know who you are," Statica said.Īs an added security measure, data is sent using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), an encrypted security protocol. Wickr doesn't have access to any of the encryption keys used for securing data.Įven a person's user name is stored by Wickr as a cryptographic cipher. The encryption keys are also encrypted and only used once before being discarded. "The operating system reports that the file has been deleted but in fact the file remains on the hard drive on the device until it is overwritten," Statica said.īefore transmission, text and photos are scrambled on the device using 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encryption. Using special computer forensics software, the data can often be recovered. This is important since computers and other devices don't immediately erase data that has been tagged as garbage. Once the time period has expired, Wickr writes over the photo or file in the device's memory with random data. To take a screenshot on an iPhone, a person must push the power button and home button at the same time. Wickr makes it hard for a person to take a screenshot of a photo or video: the recipient has to hold down a "button" on the screen, and if a fingertip moves more than a couple of pixels, the data disappears, Statica said. "No matter what can do, you cannot stop the clock," said Robert Statica, an information technology professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology, who cofounded Wickr with Nico Sell, Christopher Howell and Kara Coppa. As soon as the recipient who has Wickr installed opens the message, the countdown begins. Senders of a message or photo can set a self-destruct time for the data ranging from a few seconds to six days in the free version of Wickr. San Francisco-based Wickr offers a system that is based on heavy encryption, no log files and a robust data destruction system to ensure data stays secret forever. Those records could be requested by law enforcement or accessed potentially by other people with ill intentions.
0 kommentar(er)
