The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde creates ‘anti-spy’ phone app
11 Jul 2013
Following the uproar over the United States' massive global phone and internet surveillance programme, one of the co-founders of file sharing site The Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde, on Wednesday announced his plans for a new encrypted messaging app for smartphones which he says is spy-proof.
The programme, named Hemlis (which means secret in Swedish), will use end-to-end encryption so messages are seen only by the sender and recipient. Sunde is now seeking further funding for the app.
Sunde said it was a response to governments spying on users' data. He added that the iOS and Android project is quickly approaching its $100,000 (£149,133) funding target. By Wednesday itself, the group had raised just under $40,000 from over 2200 backers in less than 24 hours.
However, Apple and WhatsApp say communications using their services are already "fully encrypted".
Blackberry is also planning to extend its BBM chat service - which can be made fully secure - to other mobile operating systems.
The team behind Hemlis said their service would be more ''beautiful'' and user-friendly.
''All communication on today's networks is being monitored by government and agencies and private companies,'' says Sunde in a video introducing Hemlis. ''The politicians are not going to stop it, they're actually asking for more. That's why we decided to build a messaging platform where no-one can spy on you, not even us.''
In a caveat, however, the creators note on their website, ''Nothing is ever 100 per cent secure. There will not be any way for someone without access to your phone to read anything, but with access to your phone they can of course read the messages. Just as they can use any other app you have installed.''
The app will be free for messages only, and Sunde and his fellow co-founders promise that they won't fund Hemlis via ads or selling data. Instead they will raise money by charging to unlock extra features like sending images.
Although encryption is certainly the key selling point for Hemlis, other over the top messaging apps (OTT) like WhatsApp have also generated success from their simple and clean user interfaces.
Although Hemlis may ultimately prove a niche product, its early success indicates widespread interest.
It wouldn't be the first privacy-centric tech product to benefit from news of the NSA and GCHQ's snooping habits – anonymous search engine DuckDuckGo experienced a similar boom in interest after the revelations.
