Hacker News Reader

Comment by nmat | Hacker News Reader

It's an interesting idea, but I don't think it will work in practice. These moments happen naturally because the couple trusts in each other. Convincing my girlfriend to download a specific app so that we can film something is a bit odd.

People don't care that much about how things are encrypted or about complex security mechanisms, they want something that is easy to use. Snapshat is easy to use for example. Everyone knows that a snap can be saved like everybody knows that I can film a phone playing a video. Given that the practical security of both apps are the same, people will go for ease of use and Snapshat wins there.

View on HN

Forgive me, nmat, but 'Snapshat' sounds like a niche spin-off app and a missed opportunity for those wanting to share something else of a private nature. :)

I agree with you, not only because couples do indeed trust each other, but also because it may come off as mistrusting to ask your s.o. to use something like this.

However, I think there might be a market for this with casual hookups. In these situations, you may want to let someone access private videos/pictures, but don't trust them enough to just send it, especially if your face is included. Receivers might also be more inclined to pay. Additionally, while I think it would be acceptable in this situation to ask someone to install an app, the makers of this have to take extra care to ensure that this looks serious and doesn't come off as a scam.

>> I can film a phone playing a video.

Maybe it's possible to make things somewhat harder.

Maybe the front camera can detect that and make it harder to do, or just covertly capture that and enable some legal process. Or encode a code of the user's phone for that purpose.

Also i remember certain format for images encoded in a certain format that when you try to capture them, you get only part of the pixels and lots of noise. Maybe something like this noise injection could be added to videos ?

I agree, in the "heat" of the moment nobody remembers if the video end up being shared with somebody else without consent.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com