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Wickr Me is shutting down December 31, 2023
- hobbitstan 4y agoWickr is a notorious hideout for pedophiles sharing CSAM. I wonder if that had anything to do with this?
- 55555 4y agoYeah I only heard of it as a place to buy hard drugs.
- mdp2021 4y agoOthers as a user/pass - anonymous, as expected - communications system that was selected by the Air Force of the USA.
- encryptluks2 4y agoAny private end-to-end encryption solution could be considered a hideout for pedophiles or drug trade.
- goatsi 4y agoWickr didn't require a phone number for account registration or identification so it attracted a higher proportion.
- croes 4y agoSo E2E chats in Telegram have the same problem. Every good thing can be used by bad people.
- waynesonfire 4y agoOh wow, looks like Signal requiring a phone number strikes a good balance.
- feanaro 4y agoWickr is hardly the only platform with end-to-end encryption not requiring phone numbers. The same applies to Matrix, for example. That's not a valid rationale or explanation for shutting down a platform.
- Markoff 4y agoSo just move to Matrix clients (Element, Fluffychat) or Wire, Session, Tox, etc.
- mistrial9 4y agounlike say, Walmart and Purdue.. very legal there
- mdp2021 4y agoSimilar things have been said for people who pay with cash. Used by "people with something to hide", and by people with dignity - people who deem it inappropriate to allow being tracked: "people with everything to hide".
- edgyquant 4y agoAny hotel could be a haven for drug dealing and prostitution.
- temp_account_32 4y agoHaven't heard about that but I know people use it to buy drugs quite often, as in the dealer will message you through Wickr, then you transfer crypto payments and they either mail it or drop it off. A breeding ground for scams related to this as well.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- formerly_proven 4y ago> the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had invested $1.6 million into Wickr via the CIA's shell company In-Q-Tel (…) Wickr markets itself to government agencies (…) On June 25, 2021, Wickr was acquired by Amazon (…) the founder of the controversial private security firm Blackwater, is one of the principal investors. Checks out lol
- newZWhoDis 4y agoYeah if it wasn’t comped before, it sure was after that.
- nadieyninguno1 4y agoWell, maybe? HUMINT types around the world rely on very pedestrian means to communicate with their assets, so one might imagine it's a not-quite-banal but legitimate(?) use rather than straight-up infiltration.
- post_break 4y agoThis person is getting downvoted, but he's 1000% not wrong. It's bad.
- Temporarily21 4y agoThis is reddit?! Almost!
- tomschwiha 4y agoThe headline is misleading, it's only about their consumer product Wickr Me, not about the full company shutting down.
- 22c 4y agoPretty sure Wickr Me used to simply be called Wickr, back when Wickr was just a chat app.
- sieabahlpark 4y ago
- dang 4y agoOk, we've put Me in the title above. Thanks!
- alophawen 4y ago[flagged]
- dang 4y agoCan you please not post shallow dismissals, or comments in the flamewar style generally, to HN? You've unfortunately been doing that quite a bit, and we're trying for something else here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- carom 4y agoUsed it for a few weeks, absolute trash. There is a lot that is noticeably missing if you've ever used Slack. Org ended up on Mattermost, it has its quirks (like delayed notifications) but we're very happy.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deadalus 4y agoWickr was one of the biggest sourcing platforms in the psychedelic world. It will be a huge loss for Psychonauts.
- mdp2021 4y agoWell it was also the software of choice for people who wanted their conversation with faraway peers to be, as expected, private.
- coder-3 4y agoAny predictions about where they'll move to? I'd be surprised if they start picking a set of different apps.
- hsbauauvhabzb 4y agoI work in security. People from my past have occasionally popped up as new signal users, I imagine they care about operational security for other reasons than what I do
- AmericanChopper 4y agoA friend of mine recently joined signal, and she had a bunch of contacts message her saying they didn’t know she was into take drugs…
- Sami_Lehtinen 4y agoSession is quite popular in Finland after Wickr.
- Temporarily21 4y agoAlso hardcore drugs and antidotes
- arcturus17 4y agoAntidotes?
- codetrotter 4y agoBur Wickr Pro, used by companies for internal communication, will continue to exist it seems. That’s good.
- whatwherewhy 4y agoWhat kind of company gets an app popular with drug dealers for their internal communication?
- potatototoo99 4y agoIf your app is not popular with terrorists and child rapists, it is not secure.
- quickthrower2 4y agoI doubt that is 100% true in either direction. People, especially non geeks can be duped into thinking something is secure
- whatwherewhy 4y agoIf an app is popular only with terrorists and child rapists, it's a weird choice for a business.
- andrewinardeer 4y agoI know Australia's Ex-Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, used Wickr while he was in office.[0] [0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-03/malcolm-turnbull-uses-secret-messaging-app-instead-of-sms/6276712 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-03/malcolm-turnbull-uses...
- SturgeonsLaw 4y agoDrug dealers are one thing, but this just goes to show some truly awful people are using it
- buildbuildbuild 4y ago
- Markoff 4y agoOh no, where will I get my drugs now? Oh wait, I don't do drugs, so anyway... And even for druggies seems like Matrix should be sufficient enough or Wire, Session, Tox, etc.
- seattle_spring 4y agoNot doing drugs is not the flex that you seem to think it is.
- jacooper 4y agoIt totally is.
- Markoff 4y agojudging by number of upvotes vs downvotes this comment gets today I learned HN is full of junkies
- krolden 4y agoHow do you define 'junkie'?
- Markoff 4y agoanyone who use illegal drugs regularly
- krolden 4y agoHow does that make one a junkie? Junkie implies they go around collecting junk to sell for drugs. Not all drug users are poor.
- Markoff 4y agoWhen you enter "junkie" into Google it gives you accurate definition "a drug addict", because that's what it is, just more pejorative synonym for "drug addict", since I hardly have any respect for junkies I don't feel like using diplomatic terms regarding them. Same as "family" gives you (for now) also very clear definiton "a group of one or more parents and their children living together as a unit" which is quite shocking to see at woke Google, I am surprised they didn't update this horrible discriminatory definiton I just yesterday evening discussed with friends who called me names for following exact Google definition of family and not calling childless couple a family.
- RobotToaster 4y agoI've been expecting this since they were bought by amazon last year.
- lexandstuff 4y agoIn Australia, the majority of drug deals are organised on Wickr. It's so popular amongst criminals, drill rappers mention it in their bars [1] This is going to be a huge loss (or gain if you're in law enforcement, I guess). [1] https://genius.com/17161424 https://genius.com/17161424
- shp0ngle 4y agoNot just in Australia
- Stagnant 4y agoIn Finland as well, and funnily enough it is also mentioned in some Finnish rap songs [1] [1] https://genius.com/22801616 https://genius.com/22801616
- m00dy 4y agowhat is Finnish Rap about ? Don't tell me it is just about weather xD
- technion 4y agoIronic, given few in Australia had heard of it before pur politicians endorsed its secrecy. https://www.news.com.au/technology/wickr-app-the-snapchat-for-grownups-that-federal-politicians-are-using-to-secretly-discuss-leadership/news-story/47a16e0cc4edf3116478ee35db180832 https://www.news.com.au/technology/wickr-app-the-snapchat-fo...
- quickthrower2 4y agoAnother nail out of the coffin for decentralised platforms
- WaitWaitWha 4y agoAs a side note I used to use Wickr, then moved over to Signal, as Signal also could do SMS. Now they are getting rid of SMS :'( . Any alternatives where I can do secure messaging and standard SMS/MMS?
- Lazare 4y agoSignal isn't dropping SMS by choice, but because the APIs aren't being exposed on Android going forward. You won't find a replacement until that changes.
- simfree 4y agoUnless your an Android Device Manufacturer, you can't get access to the RCS APIs. All SMS/MMS apps are stuck due to this, Google has known since 2013 that they need to open up RCS but has kept it as a walled garden instead.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kypro 4y agoThe comments mentioning how Wickr is used for bad things seem a bit naive? Surely it's only used for bad things because it's one of the few places for communicating without the risk of surveillance? When Wickr is gone won't the criminals will just move to the next best app which allows them to communicate without surveillance?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- djs070 4y agoKind of infuriating that the blog post doesn't mention what "Wickr Me" is. The link in the page footer to "Wickr Me" only goes back to the same blog post.
- themihai 4y agoWickr is/was one(or the only) privacy oriented chat app that didn't require your phone number or your phone book. For some reasons there is no replacement. All the "privacy" messaging apps want your phone number and phone book.
- kbknapp 4y agoLast I looked Session[0] does not and was created for just that purpose but without sacrificing much in the way if UX. 0: https://getsession.org/ https://getsession.org/
- simfree 4y agoBriar is another anonymous, fully decentralized chat app. It rides atop Tor rather than reimplementing an anonymous network protocol like Session does. https://briarproject.org https://briarproject.org
- lachstar-x 4y agoSESSION, the chat program that runs over the Oxen network (a Tor alternative) is much better to my mind. Voice, text, chat, all e2e encrypted and not requiring a phone number like Signal. https://getsession.org/ https://getsession.org/