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Hugin
A portrait message frame on a dark background, labeled 'From someone who trusts you'. The top shows a sunset over water; at the horizon the picture breaks into glyphs, and the bottom is still scrambled hex ciphertext. Below the frame, the steps Sealed, Open and Vanished, with Open lit.

Commentary

A message should be allowed to end

3 min read

Procedural Wisp demonstration using its live viewer shader; not a customer message.

Almost everything we say to each other now outlives the moment it was meant for. Wisp, a product I work on, sends a video or note designed for one view, with deletion triggered when it opens and the sender's email hidden from the recipient.

Contents5 sections
Sources & limits

You record forty seconds for one person. Not a post, not a caption. You say the thing you'd only say to them, in the voice you only use with them, and you send it.

They tap View. The scramble clears from the top down and there you are. They watch it once. When it ends, the picture burns away.

That's the whole product. Here's why I think it should exist.

Permanence is a choice somebody else made

Almost everything we say to each other now outlives the moment it was meant for. A late-night voice note, an apology, a joke that only works between two people: it all sits in a thread, a backup, a server, long after the conversation is over. Nobody asked us whether that was the deal. It became the default, and a default that keeps everything is a default that suits whoever holds the archive.

I think a message should be allowed to end. Being able to say something once, to one person, and have it go away when they've seen it is a kind of freedom. People speak differently when every word becomes a permanent record. Some of the most honest things anyone says only get said when they know they won't be kept.

I work on Wisp and I operate Hugin, so I have a business interest in what follows.

What Wisp does

Record a video of up to five minutes, upload a clip, or write a note. Wisp encrypts it in your browser before it uploads, and the recipient gets a link that opens once. Opening it triggers deletion of the stored copy. New view pages stop opening the link after 24 hours; hourly cleanup removes unviewed copies and retries failed deletions. On a video, the recipient can answer with a voice reply of up to 60 seconds, or just watch.

The recipient never sees your email address. There's no feed, no followers and no read-count to perform for. You can check whether your wisp is sealed, viewed or gone.

What it can't do

One-view delivery can't stop someone from filming their screen. An already-open tab or a copied Blob URL may remain usable until deletion succeeds. Your face and voice can identify you. Anyone holding the full link can open an unviewed wisp, so treat it like a key. Wisp still uses your email behind the scenes for sign-in, delivery and replies. The security page explains exactly where the key goes and when, and the privacy policy covers the rest. I'd rather you read those limits now than find them later.

Try it

Your first token is free. One token sends a note or one started minute of video; after that, packs start at 10 tokens for $5, with no subscription. Send one short thing to someone who'd want to hear it: open the composer.

Wisp also runs a cash referral program that pays a commission on qualifying purchases, for US residents 18 and older. If you recommend it with a paid link, say so. Terms are here.

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