Secret-sharing words, explained
8 terms
Short answer
Plain-language definitions of the terms you’ll meet around encrypted, self-destructing messages, from "burn after reading" to "zero-knowledge".
- AES-GCM
- A widely used encryption method that also detects if anyone tampered with the scrambled text. temp.cool uses it with 256-bit keys.
- Burn after reading
- A message that deletes itself as soon as it has been read.
- Ciphertext
- Scrambled text that can only be turned back into the message with the right key.
- End-to-end encryption
- Encryption where only the sender and recipient can read the message, not the service in between.
- Link preview
- The card a chat app shows for a link. Making it means opening the link, which is why temp.cool asks for a tap first.
- PBKDF2
- A way to turn a password into an encryption key slowly on purpose, so guessing passwords takes far longer.
- URL fragment
- The part of a link after the #. Browsers keep it to themselves and never send it to the server.
- Zero-knowledge
- A service built so that it cannot see the content it stores, even if it wanted to.
Got a secret to send?
Free, no account. Read once, then poof.