Reading through the Privacy Policy, I have some concerns.
Under "Usage Information":
> We may collect information about: how you communicate with those Wavers, such as their names, the time and date of your communications...
I know you're not storing the actual messages (in plain text at least), but I don't like the idea that you're storing who I'm talking to.
Under "Information Provided By Third Parties":
> - Advertisers may let us know you installed a new app or games so we can determine whether we showed you an ad for it.
> - If you interact with one of our advertisers, they may share information with us to help target or measure the performance of ads.
> - If another user uploads their contact list, we may combine information from the user's contact list with other information we have collected about you.
That's too much profiling for my liking.
In the end, even though the messages are "private", I don't feel that this app is taking my _privacy_ seriously.
Otherwise, I like the design, the UI and the idea. We need more competitors in this space. I do desire a web version of any message platform I use. It makes it easier for me to communicate throughout the day.
Presently, Wave (^‿^)ﾉ is privately funded and in no way supported by any advertising revenue.
The information that you made reference to was included as a precaution should some future involvement come to fruition.
Please bear in mind that this project was made by an individual. Your feedback regarding encryption / clauses in the terms of service / privacy policy are greatly appreciated as they serve as guidance on which areas can be changed or improved upon.
Norwegian eight digit numbers are not possible to submit in the signup form. Strange that they need the phone number for an “anonymous “ messaging device.
Hey HN, Wave (^‿^)ﾉ is privacy-focused instant messenger designed to keep the nature of conversation fun and fleeting.
No other messaging platform offers complete messaging peace of mind by being totally anonymous.
The app offers two message types:
WaveFlash: 10 words or less - message displayed word-by-word rapidly.
WaveLength: 1000 characters or less - tap anywhere to close the message when read.
Ask me anything here!
Features:
↩ Send and receive messages in one place. No chat lists.
Messages are secured in capsules that have to be manually opened to be read.
Any unread message can be unsent without notifying the receiver.
Messages are displayed without showing the sender’s name.
All messages can be viewed once only.
Messages are end-to-end encrypted.
Quick reply by swiping sent/received message capsules inwards.
Custom contact names for any chat
I feel like I couldn't use this for serious messaging (things closer to email), but also that it's too limiting for my frequent communication with my partner and close friends or family. There are elements of Snapchat in this, but my impression of Snapchat was that the success was in large part because the pressure of crafting a great photo for FB/IG was lessened. Do people have that anxiety with text? I'm not sure.
Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was more asking who is your target user? What problem are they trying to solve with this? How does this app better suit them than your competitors?
I'm not sure I fully understand the question but you the only limitation to the unsend feature is the message being 'read'. You can send and unsend as many times as you like.
They're asking if the unsend feature exposes whether the message has been read..... but I can see in the screenshots that there's a 'read' indicator anyway, isn't there? So it was a ignorant question and I wouldn't worry about it.
One thing I like about Viber a lot is their secret chats where you can set the time limit and messages self-destruct when that time passes. I wish other clients had that too.
Messages sent on the app are end-to-end encrypted and the key is not known to the server.
The only way anybody can read your messages is if you allow them physical access to your phone.
No, you really can’t. That’s a library for symmetric cryptography. The key distribution/exchange problem cannot be solved with symmetric cryptography alone - unless you are acting as a trusted party and conveying the symmetric key - in which case you are not implementing end-to-end cryptography.
P.S. Get a friend to download it as well as it requires both parties to have each other contacts saved and the app installed in order to send / receive messages.
Could you explain the difference, in your own words?
The most obvious way I see to support this feature is to build up a big table of contact connections, so that when I join and put in my phone number it can send up my list of contacts and find all the bidirectional connections to what's already in the database.
This means you're building up a big graph of how all your users are connected to each other, and to people who don't use Wave (yet). Is that not 'harvesting' the contacts? Do you do it a different way?
The app requires an active number in order to use the service. This number is submitted to the database during the verification process. To my knowledge, mthere is no way around this.
To send and receive messages, the app needs access to your contacts. When you tap 'send' for the first time, the app will ask you for permission to access your address book.
Ugh, I hate everything about this. They claim to be privacy focused but collect metadata for ads.
The app appears to have 15 fake 5 star reviews that don't at all accurately review the app as an ephemeral messaging platform. One compares it to Whatsapp.
there is no website explaining how this app works.
they're forcing users to provide a phone number for no discernable reason.
Under "Usage Information":
> We may collect information about: how you communicate with those Wavers, such as their names, the time and date of your communications...
I know you're not storing the actual messages (in plain text at least), but I don't like the idea that you're storing who I'm talking to.
Under "Information Provided By Third Parties":
> - Advertisers may let us know you installed a new app or games so we can determine whether we showed you an ad for it.
> - If you interact with one of our advertisers, they may share information with us to help target or measure the performance of ads.
> - If another user uploads their contact list, we may combine information from the user's contact list with other information we have collected about you.
That's too much profiling for my liking.
In the end, even though the messages are "private", I don't feel that this app is taking my _privacy_ seriously.
Otherwise, I like the design, the UI and the idea. We need more competitors in this space. I do desire a web version of any message platform I use. It makes it easier for me to communicate throughout the day.