In a world where computer threats are the order of the day, privacy is an almost religious issue. Instant messaging applications are one of the solutions that have experienced the most vulnerabilities with respect to this topic, therefore, some of them seek to shield their registry systems in the possible way.
The Blockchain technology has gone from being a "diamond in the rough" to become a true icon of emerging technologies, along with Artificial Intelligence. Proof of this, are the large corporations of today, who have not missed the opportunity to invest a lot of money in the study of the chain of blocks to improve the quality of their services.
This time we will talk about the company behind Wickr, the privacy-oriented mobile instant messaging application, which has received a patent that proposes the use of Blockchain to keep the records of their chats.
The patent, published yesterday by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, will allow users to resume their encrypted conversations should the chain of communication be broken. The Wickr patent describes how a user can create chats and establish rules for them, such as the ability to automatically delete messages.
These rules will be stored in the participating devices, but the documentation indicates that they can also be stored in a chain of blocks. With the same document he states:
Information from the secure chat room and transaction information can be stored in a blockchain format, so that each participant in the secure chat room documents all commands and communications. In this sense, the secure chat room is administered in a distributed manner by all the chat participants, and not by a server.
Despite this, for the time being, Wickr has not used the Blockchain technology in its existing applications, nor has it defined a plan to do so. Founded in 2011, the company has raised approximately US $ 73 million in venture funds, according to Crunchbase data.