Popolo

Popolo is a messenger for talking to one person at a time, privately. There is no sign-up. No phone number, no email, no username. When you open Popolo the first time it makes a key on your phone, and that is your whole identity. Nobody can find you. There is no directory and no search. The only way someone reaches you is an eight-digit code you gave them yourself. That means unwanted messages from strangers are not filtered out — they are impossible. And if you end a conversation, it is genuinely ended: the keys go with it, there is no account for that person to look up, and there is no way back in. Conversations do not pile up. Messages disappear three days after they are read, and each conversation can be set to anything from an hour to a month — either person can change it, and the other is told in the conversation. Each phone deletes its own copy on its own clock. Yours starts when you send a message or read one; theirs starts when they open it. So something you sent can go from your phone while it is still sitting unopened on theirs. Our servers hold a message only until the other phone collects it. If there is something you need to keep — an address, a time, a name — mark it and it stays. The other person is always told when you do, because keeping something quietly is exactly what this app exists to prevent. Photos work the same way as messages. Each one is encrypted under its own key, and the key travels inside the conversation. Our servers hold something they cannot read and cannot tell apart from anyone else's. Two codes, not one. One opens Popolo. The other deletes everything, instantly and without asking twice — for a moment when refusing to unlock is not an option. Nothing on screen looks any different when you use it. What Popolo does not claim. It cannot stop someone photographing your screen with another phone. It cannot promise a message is gone from a device you do not hold. It cannot recover anything: if you lose your phone, your conversations are gone, and there is no backup. That is the trade, and we would rather say it here than surprise you with it later. Encryption is end-to-end, using the Signal protocol with post-quantum key agreement, and every message is padded to a fixed size so its length gives nothing away. Neither is optional and neither can be turned off.