Image: Janis Engel/EyeEm
Hacking. Disinformation. Surveillance. CYBER is Motherboard's podcast and reporting on the dark underbelly of the internet.
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The new app is called Mode. “Privacy & Protection for Team Communication,” the app’s website reads. The website says Mode protects chats with end-to-end encryption and disappearing messages, and also includes video calling and file sharing. Sign up requires no email address or phone number, and the app can block users from copying and pasting content from inside Mode, the website adds. In essence, Mode looks like Microsoft Teams or Slack, or could be seen as a competitor to Wickr or Wire. Both of those are secure messaging apps whose paid products are geared towards organizations.Notably, the Mode website is not available in the U.S. The FBI has been behind multiple investigations into the encrypted phone industry. In 2018 it shuttered major player Phantom Secure. Then in June 2021, the FBI revealed it had been secretly running its own encrypted phone company called Anom in order to harvest users’ messages. When visiting the Mode site from the U.S., the site returns a message: “Sorry, Mode is not available in your region.” Mode’s website is available from Canada, where OnyxCorp is based.Do you know anything else about Ciphr, Mode, or the encrypted phone industry? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.
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