Wire is a 50-person startup company that is mostly made up of engineers. It is stepping into a global political debate over encryption. The topic combats privacy against security advocates, which is further heightened by the current battle between the U.S. Government and Apple about the unlocking of a certain iPhone to assist in investigations. The startup recently announced that they are being backed by the co-founder of Microsoft’s popular messaging platform, Skype, along with a group of former technologists from the tech giant, in introducing a new version of their own messaging service. Said service promises end-to-end encryption for all types of conversations, which even includes video.
Wire Introduces a More Secure Way for Messaging
Wire recently announced that they will add video calling to their current package of private communications services. This even goes beyond existing messaging providers. The firm stated that there are rivals that do offer privacy and encryption towards messaging but they are offered in a limited output. Competitors such as Facebook’s Messenger, Telegram, Signal, Threema, and even WhatsApp are named.
The startup is based in Switzerland and it is there where they store user communication on their very own computers. Said computers are able to deliver privacy protections that are always activated even when their users are calling multiple devices. For instance, encryption will still be at play when a user is calling a phone and desktop PC simultaneously.
It might be all well and good, but the service does post fresh challenges, especially with regards to law enforcers. Those who are often seeking to exploit gaps in encryption for the sake of safety and criminal investigations might even pose more of a problem than ever before.
Wire Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Alan Duric said in a statement, “We believe Wire is unique in the industry with always-on encryption for all conversation(s), in groups or 1:1, with simultaneous support for multiple devices.” The statement was then followed by the company’s Executive Chairman, Janus Friis, as they told Reuters, “Everything is end-to-end encrypted: That means voice and video calls, texts, pictures, graphics – all the content you can send.” This Danish entrepreneur was also the co-founder of Skype, the popular messaging platform that was sold to Microsoft.
Wire has launched their self-titled application back in the late 2014 to limited notice. This is because it offered encrypted text and calling services which is similar to a dozen other apps. Their app relies on standard, open-source encryption techniques. With these, it allows outside technical experts to evaluate the security of their own products rather than simply relying on trust.