India's Hike App Succeeds With Private Chat Mode

Seventeen-year-old Pranav Sahni’s father doesn’t know he has a girlfriend. That’s extraordinary in India, where families live in close quarters and it’s rare to have a truly private conversation—or keep secrets. “Most Indian parents want to know what their children are doing with their phones,” says Sahni, who lives in a town in northern India. “My parents sit behind me on the couch and look over my shoulder.”

They can’t be there every minute, though. When Sahni isn’t being watched, he fires up Hike, a chat app on his Moto G smartphone, and thumbs in a password to activate its Hidden Mode. Suddenly new messages are revealed, highlighted in blue, that he can easily hide again. “I can just close the application and restart, and the hidden chats are gone,” Sahni says. “I don’t have to delete my messages. I can read them whenever I want.”