Tuesday, October 28, 2014

This May Be the Solution for Safe Sexting

This May Be the Solution for Safe Sexting

A new app claims to hack-proof your nudes.

Whether you're an avid sexter or a strictly-below-the-neck-pic kind of woman, you're no doubt familiar with everything that could potentially go wrong with those snapshots. You could accidently send them to the wrong person, they could pop up when your grandmother's looking through pictures of your new apartment, you could somehow upload them onto the Cloud (what is that even?), your ex could fork them over to the Internet, they could be hacked…the list goes on.

Still, there's a sexy thrill involved when sending a half-naked (or totally naked—you do you) photo. And as long as you're aware of the risks and hopefully sending them to someone you trust, there's nothing wrong with that. Take for instance the strong, smart response Jennifer Lawrence had after nude photos she sent her ex-boyfriend were hacked from her phone: "I started to write an apology, but I don't have anything to say I'm sorry for," she told Vanity Fair in its November issue. "I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years."

But about those hackers…they're out there, and they don't just target A-list celebrities. So what if you want to take a racy photo for your boyfriend or spouse or just yourself but you want it to stay hidden?

MORE: The 9 Most Ridiculous Lies We've Told While Sexting

A new app just launched last week claims to be the answer to your safe sexting woes. Hidely allows you to take pictures through the app that stay there through a "zero-trace camera," meaning they're immediately encrypted and never get backed up to your phone's camera roll or Cloud storage. Then they stay in a hidden, password-protected gallery (rather than mixed in with your brunch and cat photos). To share them, you text or e-mail an encrypted link to your partner that allows them to view the photos—but also, only through their own Hidely app. That link expires after the first click, or after 24 hours if they don't click it.

"The double encryption method is the highest level of encryption technology," says Sandra Ponce de Leon, vice president of marketing at Hidely. They say that it's so secure, they can't even retrieve your password for you if you lose it.

MORE: The One Time You SHOULDN'T Sext

Whether it's 100 percent hack-proof or not, the app does give you the ability to hide the photos you don't want appearing on your camera roll, and the password protection gives you a bigger sense of security. That said, it's still possible for the photo recipient to take a screenshot of your photo and save it to their phone rather than the app. "The one thing that Hidely doesn't prevent against is sending to the wrong person," says Ponce de Leon. "That's not something we can protect against. You still have to be smart about who you're sending your photos to."

If anything, Hidely reminds us that there really is no 100 percent safe way to sext. You can take all the proper precautions and add double encryption technology, but if you don't trust who you're texting, your private photos may always have a way of going public.

MORE: 30 New Ways to Seduce Your Partner

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