Wickr is Dead. Long live wickr-crypto-c!
upstart writes:
Wickr is DeadIf you open the encrypted messaging app Wickr Me today, you'll be greeted with a line of red text: "Reconnecting..."
[...] Wickr Me is no longer available to download on the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. The app stopped accepting new users more than a year ago. And now, even current users cannot speak to one another.
So ends the story of an app that while never reaching the popularity of other encrypted messaging apps like Signal, nor those that later turned on end-to-end encryption for the masses like WhatsApp, nonetheless played an important role in the adoption of and debate around secure communications.
[...] Wickr started in 2012. Nico Sell, founder of Wickr, said in a talk a couple of years later that "all of us have something to hide, either now or your future self." Crucially, that came after the Edward Snowden whistleblower revelations of 2013, which saw a massive boom of secure messaging apps and the spread of encryption more generally.
[...] But how was a free app to make money? Part of the answer for Wickr at least ended up being with the U.S. government. In 2021, I reported that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) paid Wickr $700,000 for a number of Wickr licenses. In parallel to its free Wickr Me app, Wickr had developed an enterprise version that allowed governments or businesses to send encrypted messages to one another but still collect and audit messages if necessary. Later that year, I then reported that CBP planned to deploy Wickr across "all components" of the agency as part of a $900,000 contract. I have since obtained more documents about CBP's purchase of Wickr licenses via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). I've uploaded them here for posterity.
[...] That transformation from scrappy upstart to government contractor was solidified when Amazon Web Services acquired Wickr in June 2021. I remember being shocked at the time and writing up the news as quickly as I could. What the hell was AWS going to do with an app that was becoming a hotbed for crime, at least in my anecdotal experience?
The answer was to shut it down entirely. After NBC News found in 2022 that Wickr was linked to a string of child abuse cases, AWS announced it would stop accepting new users at the end of that year. The company said it would then kill Wickr Me entirely on December 31, 2023.
The secure messaging world is very different to the one Wickr launched in more than ten years ago. Today mainstream platforms are turning on end-to-end encryption by default, with Facebook doing just that last month. The need for specialist apps like Wickr may be decreasing with certain groups. Maybe it's even a good sign that Wickr has been shown the door.
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