Moxie Marlinspike, the creator of Signal, has launched the AI assistant Confer and is positioning it as an alternative to traditional chatbots, where privacy is often manually enabled. In Confer, the developers intend the most private mode to be basic and not allow even server administrators to read conversations.
Moxie Marlinspike, the creator of Signal, has launched the AI assistant Confer and is positioning it as an alternative to traditional chatbots, where privacy is often manually enabled. In Confer, the developers intend the most private mode to be basic and not allow even server administrators to read conversations.
According to TechRadar, Confer encrypts user interactions before they reach the server, with access keys stored only on the device. The service operates in a so-called trusted execution environment, where data remains inside a secure «container,» and claims it doesn’t store chats for further verification, model training, or sharing with third parties.
Special emphasis is placed on supporting synchronization between devices without developers having access to the content of correspondence. This is achieved by using a cryptographic scheme that prevents even the Confer team from decrypting correspondence unless the user allows it.
Another difference they are betting on is the ability to check what software is running on the servers. Confer uses a remote attestation mechanism: the user can verify that the declared code is running, and each release is digitally signed and a description of the entire software stack is published.
The article also reminds us why the topic of privacy in chatbots has become a sore point: in previous years, there were cases when ChatGPT logs had to be preserved by court order, and some chats were found in search results due to erroneously public links. Against this background, Confer is trying to reverse the logic of «first collect data, then configure» by making privacy the standard.
Most popular AI assistants have toggles for history and data usage, but the user has to navigate the settings separately. Confer is targeting an audience that needs privacy by default, particularly for sensitive conversations in business, education, and healthcare.
Previously, dev.ua wrote about how the messenger Signal began testing a new secure backup feature that allows users to restore their message history in the event of a lost or damaged phone. Previously, all correspondence irretrievably disappeared with the device, which caused a wave of requests to create a data storage mechanism.
