Reports have recently surfaced that are almost guaranteed to raise controversy, revealing that many in the upper echelon of the Republican party have been using Confide as their preferred communications platform. A source from within the party has said that the president and key members of the administration are also among those using the hyper-secure chat application. The source, who remains un-named, also gives a reason for the secrecy. The party has allegedly developed a new fear of leaks brought on by the controversies surrounding last year’s election.
For those who don’t already know, Confide is a messaging application that uses end-to-end encryption and auto-deletes messages by default. The messages are deleted immediately after being read and taking of screenshots within the application is deliberately difficult to accomplish. The digital cleanse doesn’t stop with a user’s device, either. Messages are deleted from the company’s servers and any data saved by the company is only stored as a combination of meta-data from all users. While Confide is hardly the only application in existence with that purpose – unfortunately, even ISIS has its own similar application – it is equally obvious that many Americans will be concerned that US politicians are now reportedly using it. Though it may seem arbitrary to some, others may be asking what exactly the party and the current administration have to hide. During the 2016 presidential election, many within the party seemed happy enough that so many damaging communications from the opposing party were leaked. That said, there have also been several legitimate security concerns about President Trump’s online accounts and his choice of mobile device, so the use of a more secure messaging platform may be a positive thing. It is more likely that party members are simply concerned that their private personal communications could be misconstrued in light of the highly politically-charged atmosphere which has yet to dissipate following the election.
Whether or not fears that are likely to come out of this turn of events are found to be legitimate or not, communications that have to do with official business has been historically conducted over official email channels – at least since the advent of the Internet and email. Records of those communications are kept in case there is any need to go back over them in the future. It has not been said whether any official white house or political business has been conducted through the application. Since it is not necessarily likely that there has been a break with that tradition of transparency, it may not be a good idea to jump to conclusions. However, it can be said that any existing vulnerabilities within any given user’s device – or at very least within the president’s allegedly outdated device – could create an opportunity for would-be malicious entities to bypass the security of the application itself. So anybody using Confide or similar applications should always try to ensure that they have the latest security updates installed for the best results.