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“Imagine you see a picture on Jive Records of Justin Timberlake and you want to know the type of pants he’s wearing and where he got them. Stipple makes it simple for publishers to share this information with a couple of clicks,” Mr. Flemings said. “You could purchase any object from the photo, or simply find out more information.”

A group of computer security experts want to turn that model on its head with Wickr, a new mobile app that they hope will set a new standard for how personal data is disseminated. Wickr’s motto: The Internet is forever. Your private conversations don’t need to be. The app, which became available in Apple’s iTunes store on Tuesday, lets users transmit texts, photos and videos through secure and anonymous means previously reserved for the likes of the military and intelligence operatives. Text messages, photos and videos sent via Wickr are secured using military-grade encryption and never stored. The service camouflages user names and other identifiable information, such as a phone’s identification number, by appending several random digits to each value, then mashing them up with a mathematical algorithm, a process security experts refer to as “salting” and “hashing.” Wickr hashes and salts that information several times and only stores the encoded result.