Reputation ratings allow you to build up credibility for your account on Gliph. You can use them to help you make a decision as to whether you trust someone before completing a transaction with them.

You must complete a transaction using a listing in Gliph Marketplace to be able to assign reputation.

This means if a Bitcoin payment is involved, you must have a Coinbase or Blockchain.info wallet attached and use Deal Flow to make the payment.

If you already completed a transaction in Gliph Marketplace, you should already have received  an email allowing you to rate the other person or people you’ve interacted with. Transactions completed outside Gliph Marketplace will not offer a chance to set Reputation.

Gliph Profiles continue to become more useful, showing off information about another user’s Marketplace listings, Groups and Channels in common, whether they have a Bitcoin Wallet attached and now the reputation. This information is in addition to the personal data they’ve chosen to share publicly or privately with you.

This is a screen capture of the current live view of Cory’s Gliph Profile.

We’re excited to see Gliph identity coming into its own with so much useful information!

We’ll be monitoring Gliph reputation to prevent abuse and we plan to increase the depth of information available over time. If you haven’t, get a move on with listing something for sale in Gliph Marketplace to begin establishing your reputation today!

There are many group messaging apps to choose from, so what makes group messaging on Gliph unique?

• Strong Identity Controls – Leverage Gliph’s unique privacy capabilities to show your real name to one group on Gliph, and a pseudonym to another.
• Data impermanence / Deletion – Erase history by deleting any of your messages permanently from a group conversation, removing it for all group members.
• Protection from Group Snooping – Keep your conversations completely private to you and your group members using Closed Groups in combination with Lockdown Privacy Protection.

It also has some terrific features that make it a great choice for all your Group messaging needs:

• Cross-Platform – Include Android, iOS, and web users in your group conversations. Access the discussion from your mobile, tablet or desktop computer.
• Group Profile Photos – Represent your group with a nice photo. (Admin set)
• Group Notification Preferences – Choose whether to get notifications from any given group.
• Group Invitation Links – Open groups have single links that allow people new to Gliph to sign up and automatically join your group.

These features also come with new System Messages, which helps show when someone has been invited to or removed from the group.

Group messaging has been requested by Gliph users for a long time, so we’re very pleased to bring it to market on all of Gliph’s clients. Enjoy!

What happens to Information We Put Online?
It is hard to understand what happens to data we store online. Every text we send, every picture that is transmitted, and every person we connect with is represented by data. This data is transmitted across the Internet and ultimately saved on one or many servers and sometimes multiple devices such as smartphones, desktop computers and laptops. What happens to this data?

Social platforms commonly offer “deletion” or “removal” features that make it appear that you can permanently remove stuff you have put online. Unfortunately, these services are often misrepresenting what actually happens with information.

For example, messaging services like GroupMe and Whatsapp offer to remove messages for you. But depending on the app, your unencrypted messages are saved in a database with a flag marked deleted. Services may be built in a way that they are unable to delete the message on the other person’s phone, instead only “hide” it from your end of the conversation.

For a long time, Facebook would not actually remove photos that you had deleted from your account. Now that Facebook has fixed their system, your photos actually be will be actually deleted within 30 days. Today, you can “Delete this Photo,” however Facebook’s platform may not actually delete it for weeks.

A lot of questions have been asked about how Snapchat handles removal of data. You send a photo to someone, and it is supposed to disappear within a short period of time. However, Snapchat has made it clear that images sent over the service will persist for up to 30 days or until all recipients of the image have opened the photo. More concerning to some is that snaps are not being removed properly from smartphones and can in fact be recovered.

Update (5/8/14): Snapchat settled charges from the FTC that it misrepresented how it was handling user data collection practices.

This is a pretty big problem, since if you don’t have a background in Computer Science, you must rely on what you’re being told in the interface. If it says “Delete,” does that mean right now, forever, from everywhere?

Behind the Scenes on Message Deletion on the Gliph Platform
When we first introduced message deletion on the Gliph platform, our focus was on clarifying why Gliph deletes from both sides rather than allowing complete archiving. (Please see “Our Thinking on Message Deletion“). What follows in this entry is a more general overview of what Gliph is doing with deleted messages.

When you send a message on Gliph, it originates from either the Gliph iPhone, Android or web applications. At that time, the message is stored in a “cache” (memory) of your device. The message is also stored encrypted on the server, and once it is received by the other Gliph user, it may be temporarily cached on their device as well.

If the same message is deleted, (by either the sender or the receiver), the Gliph app first removes the message visually and from the local cache and then tells the server, “remove this message right now!” The server responds by deleting the information from Gliph’s database. If the other person has the app open, and are looking at the conversation, they will not see the message removed immediately.

However, the next time they refresh the view, the app will realize that the data does not exist anymore. This causes their app to visually remove and also delete the message in the local cache. This completes deletion of a message or entire conversation of messages on the Gliph platform.

Nitty Gritty Details
There are a lot of details when it comes to how “cacheing” is handled, particularly around the security of data stored in a local cache. For example, what happens if you’ve deleted a message but the other person hasn’t opened up the app? Is the message still in the device cache and vulnerable?

The security of this area varies with the platform you’re using and what you’ve done to it. For example, iOS protects application data from being accessed using something called “sandboxing” but may be vulnerable if the device is rooted using “jailbreaking.” Android uses a similar sandbox to isolate application data. However, many Android users seek full control over their devices and “root” their phones.

Both jailbreaking on iOS and rooting on Android present important security implications, because these operations can allow apps to access data they otherwise should not be able to. Android users have access to a variety of tools that look for vulnerabilities in apps on rooted and non-rooted devices and attempt to collect data from these apps. 

Gliph regularly wipes and re-loads the local cache on iPhone and Android to help reduce the likelihood that a jailbroken or rooted phone would have persistent message data. However, we strongly advise people to be aware of the security implications of using Gliph on jailbroken or rooted devices.

How Message Deletion on Gliph Works
There are three ways messages are deleted by the Gliph platform today. All of them follow a process outlined in “Behind the Scenes on Message Deletion on the Gliph Platform” outlined above.

Individual Message Deletion
Gliph’s iOS and web apps allow of you to delete individual Gliph messages. This happens when you swipe a message on the Gliph iPhone app to the left and choose delete. In the web app, you tap the Edit button in the top right of any conversation.  On Android, Gliph does not currently offer individual message deletion.

Conversation Deletion
All of Gliph’s apps allow you to delete all messages in a conversation at the same time. On iPhone, you can delete messages by swiping a conversation from the activity view. We have an animated gif showing this behavior in this blog entry.

On Android, the process has a few steps:

1. Go into a conversation.
2. Tap the ( i ) button in the action bar to go into the Gliph view.
3. Tap the 3 dots icon in the action bar.
4. Choose “clear all messages.”

On the web and iOS you can delete all messages by:

1. Go into a conversation.
2. Tap the center part of the title bar on the web or the ( i ) in the title bar of iOS to get to the Gliph View.
3. Scroll down and choose “Clear Conversation.”

GliphMe
GliphMe (video demo) has its own special behavior in how it handles deletion of messages. Once someone starts a conversation with you using one of your links, Gliph keeps track of when the last message was sent. After 48 hours, Gliph automatically deletes the entire conversation and connection with the GliphMe link respondent.  Connection data is permanently removed from the Gliph database as well.

Gliphme acts like this for two reasons: One, to reduce the clutter from conversations that you probably have no interest in continuing, and two to reduce the amount of unwanted private conversation data that Gliph is storing.

It is possible for GliphMe conversations to avoid this automatic removal after 48 hours. If someone who is not a Gliph user clicks a GliphMe link and uses that page to sign up for Gliph, the conversation will persist just like a normal conversation. At this time, we’re calling this “claiming” a conversation by the respondent. After a conversation has been claimed, the messages can still be deleted from that point using the same procedures outlined in “How Message Deletion on Gliph Works” above.

One area where message deletion is not supported is in a GliphMe conversation that has not been claimed. For example, if you reply to an inbound GliphMe message and then wish to delete that message. You can not do so if the respondent has not claimed the conversation yet. We recognize that this may be in conflict with expectations for uniform deletion behavior across Gliph and are still considering how best to handle this with GliphMe.

Expiring Messages
In the Gliph iOS and web apps, it is possible to set messages to expire after a period of time. This is very similar to how Gliph handles user-directed deletion of messages. Except in this case the server has set a particular time, when it will remove the data from the Gliph database. The next time either the sender or receiver opens the app after the message has been removed from the database, any existing local cache of the message is removed and it will no longer be visible on either user’s devices.

Data Impermanence and Privacy
When other internet services store your conversations permanently, unencrypted, it creates the possibility that that information will be hacked or even misused in the future. This is particularly concerning for messaging services that use advertising-based monetization, or are entertaining acquisition by an advertising-based company. This doesn’t need to happen.

At Gliph, we are designing software to avoid these issues. For example, the new product we released recently, GliphMe, uses automatic deletion of conversations after 48 hours. Another way we demonstrate commitment to this is by honoring what is implied in the interface. As in, “Delete” should mean stuff actually is deleted everywhere Gliph can, as promptly as possible.

The entire Gliph team feels there is a strong connection between privacy and impermanent or ephemeral online activity. This includes not only messages you’ve sent but who you have connected with online in the past.

This issue is particularly important as Gliph extends past simple messaging and into the realm of peer-to-peer transactions. We continue to think deeply about how we can empower people who use Gliph with both user experience and technical implementations that deliver privacy through data impermanence and beyond.

We love feedback! If you have comments on this blog entry or unanswered questions about deletion on Gliph, please send a message to the Support Gliph or to support [at] gli dot ph.

Today, in an update for iPhone and Android, we’re allowing you to choose which conversations you want to show up in push and which should stay locked up for viewing in the app.

So far, Gliph has only allowed push notifications to say “Someone sent you a message.” With this update, you can now choose to show the tag of who is sending you a message, and if you want, the content of the message as well.

Unique to Gliph, you can make these changes on a per-contact basis, meaning for one contact in Gliph you can show message content or tag in the push notifications, and for another show nothing at all.

Let’s look at an example, where another Gliph user you’re connected with and have tagged “Erin” sends you the message “Hey, what are you up to tonight?” The following three examples show how a Gliph Message push notification will appear using different settings:

How to Enable Message Content in Push Notifications on Gliph
Turning on message content in push notifications is just two taps from any conversation. We made a short video explanation of how to set up message content to show in push notifications. Here are written instructions: 

1. Go to the Conversation View (chat view) with someone you send Gliph messages with and tap on their Gliph in the title bar.
2. In their Gliph view (connection view), scroll down to Push Settings.
   1. Turn on Message Content in Push to have future messages from this connection show up in Push Notifications.
   2. Turn on Contact’s Tag in Push to have future messages from this connection show the Tag of the connection. Remember you can edit a tag for a connection at the top of the Gliph View by tapping Edit Facets I Share.
3. If you do not see the Push Settings in Gliph view, force close the application and re-open it. Or log out of Gliph and log back in.  You will see the options.

Setting up Message Content in Push Notifications for Android
For now, Android users need to use the Gliph mobile web application at https://gli.ph/m to change the Push Settings. Use the same instructions as above. Once you’ve set it up there, it will work on the native Gliph Android app.

We are aware that some of our Android users feel the Gliph Android app is due for an update. we will get a release out as soon as we can. We appreciate your use of Gliph and will continue to support the Android app. For now, we thank you for your patience and use of Gliph.

Monitoring the Privacy Settings of a Conversation
We recognize that some people may not want their conversational partner to enable message content in push notifications. To this end, Gliph now uniquely allows you to view the push notification settings that your partner currently has set. This way, you can have better understanding of the privacy of a conversation you’re having.

We also now allow you to see whether your conversational partner has enabled Lockdown™ Privacy Protection. For maximum security of your conversation, both parties should have Lockdown™ Privacy Protection enabled, and you can now see this valuable information at-a-glance on iPhone and mobile web.

You can monitor privacy settings of your partner by going into the conversation with them, then tapping on their Gliph and scrolling down. Here are some examples with explanations:

Like many internet companies, Gliph is based in the United States and is governed by the laws of this country. Gliph respects the United States’ need to maintain national security. However, Gliph opposes CISPA as proposed because the legislation conflates cybersecurity with surveillance and information sharing. CISPA significantly erodes the privacy of internet users.

What is CISPA?
At the time of this writing, CISPA is H.R. 624, (web, pdf), the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. CISPA is just a bill, which is a proposed piece of legislation that has the potential to become a federal law in the United States.

CISPA’s purpose is to help the United States investigate cyber threats and ensure the security of networks against cyber attacks. The bill aims to add legal framework for the sharing of information between private companies and the United States government.

Why Oppose CISPA?
Gliph appreciates the pressing global context around cybersecurity, yet is adamant about the preservation of civil liberty and personal privacy. We are joining the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Internet Defense League in our opposition to this bill. You can learn about the below bulleted issues and more in the EFF’s page about the bill.

Here are some of the key issues with CISPA Gliph is concerned about:

• Companies will have new rights to monitor both user behavior and personal data and then share it with the government without a warrant.
  CISPA gives companies the power to obtain “cybersecurity threat information,” which could include personal communications. The bill contains vaguely defined reasons companies may use for why they would track, store and share such information.

• CISPA grants companies broad immunity from legal liability of monitoring, acquiring and sharing personal data of their users.
  This immunity from legal liability combined with the ability to monitor and obtain personal communications has the potential to act as a loophole to privacy laws like the Wiretap Act and the Stored Communications Act.

• Users are unlikely to be informed that their private data is compromised under CISPA and will be unable to do anything about it.
  CISPA exempts the government from revealing the identities of individuals who have been tracked by companies and shared with the government from otherwise valid Freedom of Information requests. If a user’s privacy is violated by accident during information exchange, the government is not required to notify the user of the mistake.

• The recent hacks suffered by the New York Times and others were the result of attack methods that CISPA was not written to deal with.
  Although hacking has been described by the Director of National Intelligence is as a greater threat than terrorism, CISPA is not written to handle some of the most high-profile and recent attack types.

We encourage all of our users to oppose CISPA and to join Gliph, the EFF and the Internet Defense League to oppose the bill.

But the Digital Revolution is also introducing a new hazard with a wild and unpredictable impact: privacy violations.

The first drop box was invented by Robert Kay in 1760. It increased the speed and efficiency of fabric weaving and helped usher in the Industrial Revolution. For seventy years, advances in mechanics, chemistry and urbanization resulted in both unprecedented improvements to living standards and the foundation of the modern capitalist economy.

The swift change brought with it unintended consequences. Coal-burning factories choked citizens and darkened the sky with a mix of smoke and fog. In London, fatal outbreaks of Cholera resulted from draining raw sewage directly into the Thames. In Cleveland, oil refineries spilled crude into the Cuyahoga River causing it to catch fire three times in 1800s.

During the Industrial Revolution people paid the price of progress with the destruction of the environment. Today, we pay with our privacy.

The sources of privacy violations are as various as those of pollution and affect organizations of all sizes. Large companies with sophisticated security practices suffer from zero day exploits. Medium-size companies are unable to crawl above the Security Poverty Line. Startups lack both the time and capital necessary to focus on security when building for growth is job number one.

In 2011, Sony revealed that 77 million user accounts including names, addresses, email addresses, birthdates, passwords, logins, security questions and possibly credit cards were obtained by an “illegal and unauthorized person.” The number of people affected is particularly alarming given the new research that indicates one in four people who receive data breach letters become fraud victims.

Last year, a weak password and an over-privileged administrative account led to the exposure of 780,000 patient files entrusted to the Utah Department of Technology Services. It is as though a cloud of carcinogenic particulates now hangs over the state. People exposed to the violation wait with no control over their prognosis. Will the exposure lead to a shocking public revelation of their medical afflictions? Perhaps they’ll only suffer the indignity of identity theft. Maybe both.

Whatsapp, one of today’s most popular messaging clients on the market has been found to be in current violationt Dutch and Canadian privacy laws. The reason? It requires its users to share their contact information and that of their friends which is stored on the company’s servers. This presents the risk of a data breach affecting people who don’t even use the product. More people might be alarmed if they were aware of the company’s colorful history of security concerns.

Many changes must be made to slow the progression of this modern menace. Programing languages, platforms and security layers must be implemented to sustainably protect user data. Everyone from startup accelerators to venture capital partners must incentivize companies to make security and user privacy a vital aspect of product development.

While we all benefit from the great advances of the Digital Revolution, it is your unique privacy that is at risk from the potential consequences of this progress. You must be thoughtful of not only what you share but the potential consequences of its unexpected exposure.

In the summer of 1858, the Great Stink made the Thames so abhorrent that British citizenry finally drew the line on pollution. I ask you, what will be the Great Stink of the Digital Revolution? A major hack of Facebook seems like a reasonable possibility. But perhaps it won’t be so obvious or sudden. Whatever it is, take a deep breath while the air is still clear.

Rob Banagale is Co-Founder of Gliph: an identity platform designed to let you communicate and transact securely and privately. Use Gliph on the web or download the native app from the App Store and on Google Play.

Photo credits: gorillaradio, ellenm1, and marinephotobank.

The report was written by Security and Risk analyst, Heidi Shey (@heidishey) and is titled: 2012 Consumer Security Market Landscape: Key Dynamics and Growth Opportunities.

The focus of the report is the changing dynamics of the consumer security market, including the proliferation of freeware and the “app internet.” In the United States, the consumer security market is dominated by Symantec, McAfee and AVG.

One important note from the report is the importance of engagement in new consumer security. Previously, anti-virus software had a “set it and forget it” theme, which is just not going to cut it in the new marketplace. People expect software they install to do more.  You know, like secure picture messaging for example.

The report comes on the heals of Gliph’s inclusion in a previous blog entry from Heidi titled “A chat with Trend Micro: Consumer security apps and services extend beyond security and privacy.”

The report is available now for purchase or as part of a subscription to Forrester Research.