About cipher.ink

cipher.ink lets you send a message that only the person you send it to can read. You write it, your browser locks it, and the server stores only the locked version. It began in 2016 as a one-page experiment and I rebuilt it from scratch in October 2026. It has no accounts, no cookies, no ads and no trackers, and it loads nothing from anywhere but itself. How it works explains the design step by step, and the history of cipher.ink tells how it got here.

Principles

• The server should not be able to read your messages, so it never receives anything that could unlock one.
• Say what it cannot do. I have written down every limit on the security page, including the uncomfortable ones.
• Readable beats clever. The code is plain JavaScript with no build step, and I have annotated it so you can check it.
• No numbers about use. I publish what the product is, never how many people use it.

Who runs it

cipher.ink is written and run by me, a silly trans girl named B (she/her). It is a small independent project, not a company. I also write the articles, tools and puzzles on this site, and I compute the examples with the code you can read. My work is on GitHub at github.com/dustball, and this site's app is open source at github.com/dustball/cipher.ink. You can reach me through the contact form, which goes only to me. You can also write to support@cipher.ink. Neither is encrypted, so please do not put a secret in them.