Why we created Vardum
The ground is shifting. Your privacy shouldn't move with it.
In a world of fast-advancing AI and quantum computing, where governments are pushing digital IDs and passing laws to reach into a person's phone, Vardum exists to keep your messages, files and information private, under a pseudonymous identity instead of your name or number.
Four forces
All of them are already here
None of them are hypothetical, and none trend toward more privacy.
AI pointed at you
AI has made mass surveillance cheap. What once took an army of analysts now takes a script: reading patterns, linking accounts and profiling people from fragments they never knew they left.
Quantum computing is coming
A capable quantum computer breaks the classical encryption most of the internet runs on, and traffic recorded today can be decrypted later. That's why Vardum mixes ML-KEM-768 into every handshake now.
Digital ID mandates
Identity is increasingly welded to access. Conversation that isn't tied to who you are is disappearing from mainstream apps.
Device-access laws
New legal powers can compel access to the phone in your hand. End-to-end encryption alone no longer covers the whole threat.
From the founder
Built by one person, in the open
I started Vardum after New South Wales expanded laws compelling access to a phone under threat of criminal penalty, and I realised end-to-end encryption alone no longer covers the whole threat. The design goal became simple: comply fully with any lawful search, and there is nothing to extract.
In September 2026 Apple's review flagged the first version under guideline 4.3(a): not our encryption, but the platform the app was built on. So I rebuilt Vardum as a fully native iPhone app, then moved it onto servers I own and run myself. Every claim we make is labelled Implemented, New or Not claimed, because a one-person team asking for your trust should show the receipts first.
Our answer
Privacy you hold, not privacy you negotiate
Private by default
Everything is end-to-end encrypted on your phone before it leaves. Vardum's relay stores ciphertext without the keys, so there's no readable content to hand over.
Nothing tied to your identity
No phone number, no email, no name. Your identity is 24 random words made on your phone, and they're the only way back in.
Nothing sticks around
Messages burn after they're opened, quiet threads end, and either side can delete a conversation from the relay at any time.
Claims we can show
Every capability is labelled in a public claims register, and the code is public under AGPL-3.0. We don't ask you to trust us.
Vardum's cryptography is self-reviewed. An independent cryptographic audit is planned for early 2027.