The Inevitable Hacking of Social Media - The Secret App

The scope and reach of the internet has allowed users to find confidence in anonymity, as it is easy to construct a persona to hide behind, with little consequence or judgement. The juggernauts of social media such as Facebook and Twitter have the capacity for creating false or hidden identities, but the idea behind them (to connect with others) promotes the use of one's "true" self (or at least a version that they wish to project).

Over the past couple of years in conjunction with the immense global popularity of mobile phone applications there has been the popular option of "full" anonymity. Apps such as Snapchat provide the guise of self-destructing photos: the idea is that you can take a photo and send it to a friend knowing that it will only last a predetermined number of minutes before it is permanently deleted. This has given users the confidence to "snap" whatever they want without having to worry about the picture being around to haunt them. Problems arose though, as people realized that they could screenshot the photos they were sent or that despite the photo disappearing the company keeps copies of everything that goes through the server. Situations such as this solidify the idea that everything you put out on the internet and the social media sphere can never be permanently deleted.

Enter the app Secret that is available on iOS and Android.

The app allows people to share messages anonymously within their circle of friends, friends of friends, and publicly. Unlike other apps in a similar vein (PostSecret, Whisper, Yik Yak) this app is specifically made for sharing primarily with friends, which in turn makes it more interesting and addictive for people reading the updates. 

The app was founded by two social media moguls, David Byttow who was the former technical lead for Square Wallet  and Chris Bader-Wechseler who has worked at Google+, Photovine, and YouTube. One would think that an app built by people who have had extensive experience in the social media realm would be immediately successful, but initial forays were lackluster. Social media enthusiast Dawson Ingersoll downloaded the app last year about three months after its launch. "I downloaded Secret and I didn't find it to have a large enough community to continue with it," he said. Dawson said that he deleted the app after only a few weeks of having it. 

A couple of months ago,  the app had around 5 million downloads, which in the scheme of things is not many. Despite this, users have found a way to hack the main draw of the app - its secrecy. Two users who are also security researchers, Benjamin Caudill and Bryan Seely were able to infiltrate the app's system and expose the origins of specific posts. The leak was discovered as the men were trying to find bugs and weaknesses within the app's operating system. After figuring out the weakness, they reported the problem to Secret and now the company assures users that their secrets will be safe from exposure. 

Though the hack was staged and not malicious, the fact that these professional security researchers were able to not only break into the fundamental baseline of the app, but were also able to contact the founder directly through Twitter and initiate a scare to the system proves yet again the ever changing stability of such applications. Over the past month or so there have been numerous hacks to the Cloud, notably the leaking of salacious and/or private celebrity photos. There is an overwhelming feeling that permeates through the social media and digital world that precautions have to be made and users run the risk of being exposed or exploited. Can an app such as Secret ever truly live up to its name? Is there any way that things put on social media and the internet can be safe and protected? The more and more apps like Secret that come out make it easier for professional researchers and any hacking enthusiast to infiltrate. What will be hacked next? Can any social media be foolproof in the wake of groundswell?

Even though Caudill and Seely were professionals and their job revolves around exposing the weaknesses in applications and the like, it doesn't mean that the non-professional can't do the same. As Li and Bernoff simply put, "lawyers and entrepreneurs aren't the most powerful force on the Internet. People are." By having the app so readily available to anyone with a smart phone, anyone can mess with it and examine it to the point where they can hack the system, as it is the "technology in the hands of the almost always connected people that makes it so powerful". Caudill and Seely get the spotlight because their attempts were successful and they aimed to market their company Rhino Security Labs. They took advantage of the groundswell in that they used the technology to "get things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations." Their security company gets publicity from the hack, but they also help fix a glaring mistake in the coding of the app. Even in the bad news that Secret received from the hack, there is an inevitable boost in those who are aware of it, reminiscent of the cliche that all press is good press.