What does YouThisMe® do?

Find a friend — or twenty or fifty — with whom you would like to interact privately.

Go to the Apple App Store for iOS or Google Play Store for Android and download YouThisMe®. Sign up on the app for an account and then invite your friends via email. They'll receive an invitation to sign up. Once they sign up, they will appear with a nickname and avatar in your Member List. They'll need to download the app and sign up as well.

Or, you can sign up on the web here and download the app later.

Now that I've signed up some friends, what do we do?

When you sign up for YouThisMe®, you'll be able to send regular text messages, emails, Tweets and Facebook status posts that will not reveal what you're really saying or communicating.

Open the app, and log in:

Let's say you want to send a message.

Say you need to text message Baker.

Choose Baker on the list, and then write a message.

Your private message is "Things are getting pretty bad around here today. Fred looks like he's going to quit, and I'm looking for a new job. Of course, no one but you knows. Let's meet at 5:15 at the usual. Thx."

Your private message is over the 160 character limit for texting - but that doesn't matter!

Now, preview the message and see what happens:

The message you send to Baker has been changed to: "Did Ross want to work out?"

This text doesn't seem very informative, and it doesn't reveal the secret you sent. And the name "Ross" is randomly chosen.

Here's what Baker sees when he checks his text message:

But when Baker opens his YouThisMe® app he'll see what was really sent!

First of all, you know that you and your friends are using YouThisMe®. Second, the message itself is a giveaway. It's not the kind of message your friend normally sends you.

The messages generated by YouThisMe® that show up on your phone:

1. Are so ridiculously bland, humdrum, simple and commonplace that they arouse your suspicion that they are YouThisMe® messages. Messages that sound so bland that they can come from anyone at any time are all over the Internet. You can use YouThisMe® to camouflage really important messages that you want to keep private.


2. Might be sent to you as a member of a "Group." Groups of Members have special features that make YouThisMe® messaging even more powerful.


3. Might contain a special secret phrase that the Group understands is a "signal." For example, let's say that your Group agrees that any message that begins or ends with "Hmmmmmm" is a tip off that the message is sent via YouThisMe®. A YouThisMe® message that says "Hmmmmmm… Hey have you been watching the news?" would tip off members of your Group to retrieve the actual, secret message.


4. Might contain a "theme" of interest that the Group has agreed is a “signal.” In deciding on a "theme," it may be helpful to think of it as an "anti-theme,” or a subject matter in which no one in your group has any real interest. For example, let's say you and your Group agree that fishing is not of interest to anyone in the group. So, when someone in your Group gets a message like "The salmon are running now - let's go," he or she knows there’s a secret YouThisMe® message to retrieve.