This means it's a identifier that has a low entry barrier for your social circle. Signal uses a phone number as your unique identifier. But that's a personal bias.īetween Signal and Wickr I will highlight some of the comparisons that stand out to me. For me I like a company being transparent in how they create the app and how they make it run to help gain my trust. Personally I don't see much benefit to an app being closed over open. However there is always the counter argument about licences. Services like Wickr have a paid aspect and if the app is fully open, it might be easier for people to replicate and use in other ways that don't gain the company money. I don't see many companies actively using closed source as an argument for security but rather to protect intellectual property and financial gain.
Also it means that if someone does find a vulnerability, it might remain in the source code for a long period of time depending on how often a company performs code audits. Many will argue that this is not really security and that it hinders the trust factor for a sensitive app (such as a secure messaging app). This is often referred to as security through obscurity. Also your enemies won't know how your app operates as easily to find flaws. Being able to see how it handles your data (and that it handles it correctly) makes a user trust it more than a closed system where the user is not sure if a backdoor, spying mechanism, or other fault exists.Ĭlosed source proponents will argue that closed source makes it harder to break into because the code is harder to obtain (reverse engineering). Open source also makes people feel like they can trust the application. The theory is that because anyone can go through the source code there are more people who would spot issues and report them. Open source relies on the "many eyes" to guard against failure or bugs. In response to the open source vs closed source debate here are some aspects I would consider:
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