Kik Messenger

Kik Messenger

Kik Messenger running on Android Lollipop
Initial release October 19, 2010 (2010-10-19)
Stable release 8.7.0 / March 1, 2016
Development status Active
Operating system iOS 6.0 or later, Android, Windows Phone
Available in English
Type Instant Messaging Client, Web Browser
License Proprietary freeware
Website kik.com

Kik Messenger, also called Kik, is an instant messenger application (app) for mobile devices from the Canadian company Kik Interactive, available free of charge on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone operating systems.[1] Kik Messenger is modeled after BlackBerry Messenger.[2] It uses a smartphone's data plan or Wi-Fi to transmit and receive messages, photos, videos, sketches, mobile webpages, and other content after users register a username.[3] Kik is known for its features preserving users' anonymity, such as allowing users to register without providing a telephone number, and preventing users from being located on the service (including by the company itself) through any information other than their chosen username.[4][5] According to Kik Interactive, as of December 2015, Kik Messenger had approximately 240 million registered users, and was used by approximately 40 percent of United States teenagers.[6]

Kik Messenger has drawn controversy due to its reported involvement in a number of incidents of child exploitation. The app has been criticized as unsafe for minors due to its anonymity features and allegedly weak parental control mechanisms.[4][5][7][8]

Features

A main attraction of Kik that differentiates it from other messaging apps is its anonymity. To register for the Kik service, a user must enter a first and last name, e-mail address, and birth date (which, as of February 2016, must show that the user is at least 13 years old[9]), and select a username.[5] Users' names and birth dates are not verified, allowing users to misrepresent their identity and/or age if they so choose.[10] The Kik registration process does not request or require the entry of a phone number (although the user has the option to enter one[9]), unlike some other messaging services that require a user to provide a functioning mobile phone number.[4]

The New York Times has reported that according to law enforcement, Kik's anonymity features go beyond those of most widely used apps.[8] As of February 2016, Kik's guide for law enforcement said that the company cannot locate user accounts based on first and last name, e-mail address and/or birth date; the exact username is required to locate a particular account. The guide further said that the company does not have access to content or "historical user data" such as photographs, videos, and the text of conversations, and that photographs and videos are automatically deleted shortly after they are sent. A limited amount of data from a particular account (identified by exact username), including first and last name, birthdate, e-mail address, link to a current profile picture, device-related information, and user location information such as the most recently used IP address, can be preserved for a period of 90 days pending receipt of a valid order from law enforcement.[5]

Kik's anonymity has been controversial because the lack of detection and tracking has attracted some illicit users, including online predators (see Controversies).[4] It has also been suggested that the lack of a phone number requirement, coupled with the ability to use Kik on a variety of mobile devices other than a smartphone, has attracted child and young teen users because they are less likely to have smartphones.[11] However, Kik's anonymity has also been cited as a protective safety measure for good faith users, in that "users have screennames; the app doesn’t share phone numbers or email addresses."[12]

Since May 2014, Kik has contained a safety feature that blurs messages from strangers, so that users must opt in to view content sent by people outside their network. Users also have the option to delete any offensive content or block another user from contacting them. These features were developed in response to the widespread use of Kik for "cross-app" communication, whereby a user who encounters people on another app (usually a gaming app) would then use Kik to communicate with them.[12]

Kik introduced several new user features in 2015, including a full-screen in-chat browser that allows users to find and share content from the web;[13] a feature allowing users to send previously recorded videos in Kik Messenger for Android and iOS; and "Kik Codes", which assigns each user a unique code similar to a QR code, making it easier to connect and chat with other users.[14]

a group of students from the University of Waterloo in technologies for use on mobile smartphones.[15] Kik Messenger is the first app developed by Kik Interactive, and was released on October 19, 2010.[16][17] Within 15 days of its release, Kik Messenger reached one million user registrations, with Twitter being credited as a catalyst for the new application's popularity.[18]

On November 24, 2010, Research In Motion (RIM) removed Kik Messenger from BlackBerry App World and limited the functionality of the software for its users.[19] RIM also sued Kik Interactive for patent infringement and misuse of trademarks.[20][21] In October 2013, the companies settled the lawsuit, with the terms undisclosed.[22]

In November 2014, Kik announced a $38.3 million Series C funding round and its first acquisition, buying GIF Messenger "Relay". The funding was from Valiant Capital Partners, Millennium Technology Value Partners, and SV Angel. By this time, Kik had raised a total of $70.5 million.[23]

On August 16, 2015, Kik received a $50 million investment from Chinese Internet giant Tencent, the parent company of the popular Chinese messaging service WeChat. The investment earned the company a billion dollar valuation.[24] Company CEO Ted Livingston stated Kik's aspirations to become "the WeChat of the West" and said that attracting younger users was an important part of the company's strategy.[25]

Awards and honors

On October 1, 2014, Sony Music and Kik Interactive were given a Smarties award by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) for their global music marketing campaign with One Direction.[26]

Security

On November 4, 2014, Kik scored 1 out of 7 points on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's secure messaging scorecard. Kik received a point for encryption during transit but lost points because communications are not encrypted with a key to which the provider does not have access, users cannot verify contacts' identities, past messages are not secure if the encryption keys are stolen, the code is not open to independent review, the security design is not properly documented, and there had not been a recent independent security audit.[27][28] AIM, BlackBerry Messenger, Ebuddy XMS, Hushmail, Skype, Viber, and Yahoo Messenger also scored 1 out of 7 points.[27]

Controversies

Child exploitation

Child exploitation is prominent on Kik Messenger, causing law enforcement and the media to frequently express concerns about the app.[29][30][31][32][33] In 2014, a pedophile told The Trentonian newspaper: "I could go on it now and probably within 20 minutes have videos, pictures, everything else in between off the app because I know they're both still active. That's where all the child porn is coming off of."[34] Similarly, in 2015 another pedophile stated: "The first thing that I thought was, 'Wow! I can be whoever I want to be. I can get anybody I want. I can achieve my sexual glorification [sic] through this app.'"[35] Automated spam bots have also been used to distribute explicit images and text over Kik Messenger.[36][37] A state law enforcement official interviewed by The New York Times in February 2016 identified Kik as "the problem app of the moment".[8]

Prior to 2015, Kik Interactive addressed this issue by informing parents and police about their options to combat child exploitation. In March 2015, the company adopted a more aggressive strategy by utilizing Microsoft's PhotoDNA cloud service to automatically detect, delete, and report the distribution of child exploitation images on its app.[38] (Some experts have noted that because PhotoDNA operates by comparing images against an existing database of exploitative images, it does not effectively prevent "realtime" online child abuse and may not detect material not yet added to its comparison database.[39]) Kik Interactive also began collaborating internationally with law enforcement by joining the Virtual Global Taskforce, a partnership between businesses, child protection agencies, and international police services that combats online child exploitation and abuse.[4][38] The company also sponsors an annual conference on crimes against children.[8]

Minors' use of Kik

Kik has been criticized for providing inadequate parental control over minors' use of the app. The ability to share messages without alerting parents has been noted as "one of the reasons why teens like Kik".[8] Parents cannot automatically view their child's Kik communications remotely from another device, but instead must have the password to their child's user account and view the communications on the same device used by their child.[7][9][11] As of February 2016, Kik's parents' guide stresses that teens between 13 and 18 should have a parent's permission to use Kik,[9][10] but there is no technical way to enforce the requirement or to guarantee that a minor will not enter a false birthdate.[10] Kik Interactive has said that it uses "typical" industry standards for age verification, that "perfect age verification" is "not plausible", and that the company deletes accounts of users under 13 when it finds them, or when a parent requests the deletion.[7]

Nicole Lovell case

In February 2016, Kik Messenger came under public scrutiny in connection with the death of 13-year-old Nicole Lovell, who disappeared from her home in Blacksburg, Virginia on January 27, 2016 and whose body was found three days later in Surry County, North Carolina. Lovell reportedly used the app to meet and communicate with an 18-year-old man, David Eisenhauer, who has been charged with her kidnapping and murder. During the investigation, Kik Interactive provided information to the FBI that the company believed helped lead to the arrests of Eisenhauer and an alleged accomplice.[8][40] Following the arrests, Kik made an updated guide for parents available on its website and had Apple raise Kik Messenger's age-appropriate rating on its iTunes Store from 9+ to 12+, closer to Kik's requirement that no one under 13 use the service. A Kik company spokesman said that, while "a lot of blame" had been placed on Kik, many other social media networks operate in the same way, while also saying that "part of the allure of Kik is that it is anonymous."[10]

Open-source module name controversy

In March 2016, Kik Interactive was involved in a high-profile dispute over use of the name "kik" with independent code developer Azer Koçulu, the author of numerous open-source software modules published on NPM, a package manager widely used by JavaScript projects to install dependencies. Koçulu had published an extension to Node.js on NPM under the name "kik". Kik Interactive contacted him objecting to his use of the name, for which the company claimed intellectual property rights, and asked him to change the name. When Koçulu refused, Kik Interactive contacted NPM management, who agreed to transfer ownership of the module to Kik without Koçulu's consent. Koçulu then unpublished all of his modules from NPM, including a popular eleven-line code module called "left-pad" upon which many JavaScript projects depended. Although Koçulu subsequently published left-pad on GitHub, its sudden removal from NPM caused many projects (including Kik itself) to stop working, due to their dependency on the Node and Babel packages.[41] In view of widespread software disruption, NPM restored left-pad and made Cameron Westland of Autodesk its maintainer.[42] The incident sparked controversies over the assertion of intellectual property rights and the use of dependencies in software development.[41][43]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "How do I get the Kik app".
  2. ↑ Eichelberg, Amy (April 29, 2012). "Android App of the Day: Kik Messenger". The Unlockr. Retrieved February 11, 2013.
  3. ↑ "Is Kik Free?".
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Dingman, Shane (2015-03-16). "For Fast-Growing Chat Apps Like Waterloo's Kik, Child Exploitation a Pervasive Threat". The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario). Archived from the original on 2015-03-17. Retrieved 2016-02-12.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Rahman, Khaleda (2016-02-02). "How anonymous messaging app Kik is a law enforcement nightmare and may have been used by Virginia Tech student to ‘lure girl, 13, to her death’". DailyMail.com (Daily Mail). Archived from the original on 2016-02-13. Retrieved 2016-02-13.
  6. ↑ "Kik Receives $50 Million Investment From Tencent" (Press release). Waterloo, Ontario: Kik Interactive, Inc. PR Newswire. 2015-08-18. Retrieved 2016-02-12.
  7. 1 2 3 Hughes, Trevor (2016-02-05). "Kik messaging app scrutinized in wake of Va. teen's murder". WVEC-TV (Channel 13, ABC). USA Today. Archived from the original on 2016-02-13. Retrieved 2016-02-13.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Stolberg, Sheryl Gay; Pérez-Peña, Richard (2016-02-05). "Wildly Popular App Kik Offers Teenagers, and Predators, Anonymity". The New York Times (New York City). Retrieved 2016-02-13.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "Kik's Safety Guide for Parents". kik.com. Kik Interactive. 2016-02-04. Archived from the original on 2016-02-04. Retrieved 2016-02-13. If the birthday entered is for someone younger than 13, the account won’t be registered.
  10. 1 2 3 4 "Kik Messenger App Scrutinized Following 13-Year-Old's Death". CBS News. Associated Press. 2016-02-03. Archived from the original on 2016-02-05. Retrieved 2016-02-12.
  11. 1 2 Smith, Leonie (2015-05-16). "Is Kik Messenger Safe For Kids?". thecybersafetylady.com.au. The Cyber Safety Lady. Archived from the original on 2015-01-16. Retrieved 2016-02-13.
  12. 1 2 "Kik Messenger's Smart New Safety Features". ConnectSafely.org. Connect Safely: Smart Socializing Starts Here. 2014-05-20. Archived from the original on 2015-05-20. Retrieved 2016-02-13.
  13. ↑ "Kik Introduces An In-Chat Browser For Its Mobile Messaging App". TechCrunch.
  14. ↑ "Kik Codes launch on Kik Messenger, making it easier to connect with people | TruTower". TruTower. Retrieved 2015-12-17.
  15. ↑ "About".
  16. ↑ "Kik Messenger Gets off to a Good Start After October Relaunch". ThirdAge. November 4, 2010. Retrieved December 17, 2010.
  17. ↑ "KiK Messenger, free messages for Android, iPhone and BlackBerry". Dailyrumors.net. Retrieved December 17, 2010.
  18. ↑ Motorola il iDEN. "Kik Messenger app blows past 1 million users". Intomobile.com. Retrieved December 17, 2010.
  19. ↑ "RIM bloque une application concurrente A son service BlackBerry Messenger - ActualitAŠs Techno-AŠconomie - TAŠlAŠcoms et mobilitAŠ". Benefice-net.branchez-vous.com. Retrieved December 17, 2010.
  20. ↑ Weinberg, Stuart (2010-12-01). "RIM Sues App Maker Kik Over Patents". The Wall Street Journal (New York City). Retrieved 2016-02-12.
  21. ↑ Silcoff, Sean; McNish, Jacquie; Ladurantaye, Steve (September 27, 2013). "Inside the fall of BlackBerry: How the smartphone inventor failed to adapt". The Globe and Mail Inc. Retrieved August 8, 2014.
  22. ↑ Simone, Rose (October 9, 2013). "Kik eager to move on after settling spat with BlackBerry". The Record.com. Retrieved August 8, 2014.
  23. ↑ Russell, Jon November 19, 2014 TechCrunch. "Chat App Kik Raises $38M And Makes Its First Acquisition, Buying GIF Messenger Relay"
  24. ↑ George-Cosh, David; MacMillan, Douglas. "Tencent Invests $50 Million in Messaging App Kik". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2015-08-19. (subscription required (help)).
  25. ↑ de la Merced, Michael J. (2015-08-18). "Dealbook: Kik Raises $50 Million From Tencent, in Bid to Become ‘WeChat of the West’". The New York Times (New York City). Retrieved 2016-02-13.
  26. ↑ "Smarties: Congratulations To Our Winners". Mobile Marketing Association (MMA). 2014-10-01. Retrieved 2016-02-12.
  27. 1 2 "Secure Messaging Scorecard. Which apps and tools actually keep your messages safe?". Electronic Frontier Foundation. November 4, 2014. Retrieved June 1, 2015.
  28. ↑ "Only 6 Messaging Apps Are Truly Secure". PC Magazine. November 5, 2014. Retrieved January 8, 2015.
  29. ↑ "Police Issue Warning About Child Predators Using Kik App". 21Alive.
  30. ↑ Steven Raeburn. "Kik social media platform draws police warning". The Drum.
  31. ↑ "Parents be Warned against Kik App Used by Teens, Police Say". International Business Times AU. December 2, 2013.
  32. ↑ "National News Headlines - Latest Breaking News". smh.com.au.
  33. ↑ Harve Jacobs (December 5, 2013). "Live 5 Investigates: Predators using Kik messenger phone app - WLOX.com - The News for South Mississippi". wlox.com.
  34. ↑ "Pedophile on Kik app: ‘It's well known in our industry’". trentonian.com.
  35. ↑ "Sexual predator warns parents about 'kik' app". WTNH.
  36. ↑ Julia Wong (February 7, 2014). "Students, parents warned about explicit spam messages on Kik Messenger". Global News.
  37. ↑ "Albertans complain Kik messenger spam bot sending sexual messages". cbc.ca. March 5, 2014.
  38. 1 2 Frier, Sarah (2015-03-10). "Kik Adds Tools to Prevent Child Exploitation on Messaging App". Bloomberg.com (Bloomberg News). Archived from the original on 2016-02-13. Retrieved 2016-02-13.
  39. ↑ "Dynamic Coalition on Child Online Safety: Disrupting and Reducing the Availability of Child Sex Abuse on the Internet (panel discussion transcript)". friendsoftheigf.org. Friends of the Internet Governance Forum. 2014-03-09. Archived from the original on 2016-02-13. Retrieved 2016-02-13.
  40. ↑ "Kik Interactive gave FBI evidence it believes led to arrests in Nicole Lovell case". Richmond Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Virginia). Associated Press. 2016-02-03. Retrieved 2016-02-12.
  41. 1 2 Williams, Chris (2016-03-23). "How One Developer Just Broke Node, Babel and Thousands of Projects in 11 Lines of JavaScript: Code Pulled From NPM – Which Everyone Was Using". The Register. Archived from the original on 2016-03-24. Retrieved 2016-03-24.
  42. ↑ "@westlac". www.npmjs.com. Retrieved 2016-03-24.
  43. ↑ Weinberger, Matt (2016-03-23). "One Angry Programmer Almost Broke the Internet by Deleting 11 Lines of Code". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 2016-03-24. Retrieved 2016-03-24.

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