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EMAPKA beta

After you install

The first screen is almost empty, and that is normal. Nothing has happened yet because nothing has been created yet. This page takes you from the empty screen to a working conversation.

When EMAPKA opens, three buttons are greyed out and one checkbox is active. The checkbox says:

I allow sending technical diagnostic logs

The wording on the first screen of the application

Until you tick it, the three buttons stay disabled. Next to it there is a link — What you are agreeing to — and it leads to the same explanation you can read here: Privacy. Diagnostic logs are about crashes and errors. They never contain what you write or who you write to.

The first screen. The three buttons wake up once the checkbox is ticked.

If you came for other people#

A group holds from two to ten people, including you. Somebody has to create it, and that somebody becomes its creator.

  1. Press "Create group"

    You will be asked for a name — you can leave it empty, and the application will number the group for you.

  2. Choose the size

    From two to ten people. You can change it later; this only sets how many places the group has.

  3. Choose the lifetime

    One day, two, three, seven, thirty days, or unlimited. When the time runs out, the group ends by itself.

  4. Press "Create"

    The group appears with empty places in it. Yours is taken; the rest are waiting.

  5. Press "Invite participant"

    The application shows a code and a QR square for this group.

  6. Give the code to the person, yourself

    Show them the QR square, read the code out over the phone, write it on paper. EMAPKA does not deliver invitations for you — that is the point of it.

  7. They install EMAPKA and press "Join group"

    They scan the square or type the code, choose the name they will have inside this group, and press Join. Their place in the group fills up.

If you came for yourself#

EMAPKA works for one person as a closed notebook. Text, documents and pictures stay encrypted on your own computer, and no server is involved at all.

  1. Tick the checkbox and press "Create group"

    Even a notebook lives inside a group — that is how the application is built. Give it a name or leave it empty.

  2. Create it

    The group appears, with your own place in it and the others empty. Invite nobody.

  3. Tap your own place

    It opens a conversation with yourself. The application calls it Notes.

  4. Write and attach

    Everything you put there is encrypted on this computer. Up to ten files can be attached to one message.

Channel +1#

From inside a group you can open a Channel +1 — a conversation for exactly two people. It is created out of the group, but it does not belong to it: it survives the deletion of that group, and it can be closed only by the two people in it. Nobody else can see that it exists.

What to expect#

Message length
Up to 24,000 bytes — about 12,000 characters. Longer text has to be split. Work on raising the limit is under way.
Files
Up to ten files on one message.
No network
The message waits in a queue and goes out when the connection returns. Nothing is lost.
Names
You choose a name for yourself separately in each group. The groups do not know about each other, and neither do your names in them.
Leaving and deleting
A participant can leave on their own. The creator can remove a participant or delete the whole group. Deleting is final: the keys go, and with them everything that was locked by them.

Two things that cannot be undone#

What the application collects, and what it never collects

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