Most “Private” Apps Still Leak More Than You Think

Source: Dev.to

Encryption Is Only One Layer

Most developers know this instinctively, but it’s easy to forget in practice: encryption does not equal privacy.

End‑to‑end encryption protects message content in transit, but it often leaves everything around it untouched. IP addresses, timestamps, routing metadata, device characteristics, and account identifiers are still collected by default in most modern stacks.

This exposure begins before the first message is sent. It often starts the moment a user loads a landing page, installs an app, or creates an account. By the time encryption is involved, a meaningful amount of data may already exist.

How We Got Here

This usually isn’t the result of bad intent.

• Analytics get added early to understand usage.
• Logs accumulate to debug edge cases.
• Infrastructure choices are optimized for speed, cost, or convenience.
• Jurisdiction is treated as an operational detail rather than a design constraint.

Once a system scales, these decisions become difficult or impossible to unwind. Encryption may be layered on later, but the surrounding metadata footprint often remains intact.

The result is a product that is technically secure while still being highly observable.

Designing for Fewer Assumptions

This gap between “encrypted” and “private” is what led us to start PanamaSea Studios.

Our approach is infrastructure‑first and constraint‑driven. Instead of asking how much data we can safely collect, we ask how little data a system needs to function at all. Instead of relying on policy and trust, we try to make access technically limited by default. Instead of treating jurisdiction as a deployment detail, we treat it as part of the threat model.

This often makes development slower. It also forces harder trade‑offs earlier. We think that is a worthwhile cost.

ShieldChats: Minimizing Metadata by Design

One of the tools we are building is ShieldChats, a secure messaging platform designed around minimizing unnecessary data exposure alongside strong cryptography.

Messages are encrypted end‑to‑end, but the more important design decision is what we do not collect. There are no phone numbers, no email addresses, and no silent social graphs. Users are represented as cryptographic entities rather than profiles tied to real‑world identifiers.

The goal is not just to protect message content, but to reduce the amount of contextual data that exists at all. A system that cannot see much cannot leak much.

Connectivity Is Often the Missing Piece

We are also working on an eSIM‑based connectivity solution.

How users connect to the internet can reveal as much as what they transmit. Long‑term carrier identities, regional routing, and persistent identifiers often sit outside the scope of application‑layer privacy discussions.

Our goal here is similar: provide users with an alternative way to stay connected while being intentional about data handling, access boundaries, and jurisdictional exposure.

Building With Constraints on Purpose

We are not trying to retrofit privacy onto existing platforms. We are placing constraints early, even when that limits growth or increases operational complexity.

Our belief is simple: users should be able to communicate and stay connected without being profiled by default, and with systems designed to limit data exposure regardless of individual trust.