If you’ve seen the movie “Sneakers” you’ll recognize the title as one of the tipping points in that very good film. I was reminded of it over the weekend as I started to try and wrap my head around a relatively new app and social service called, Secret. A very peculiar app because the social service does what the others don’t do — it keeps your identity away from everything you share. All your posts, comments, and likes are completely anonymous. While other social networks (twitter, Facebook, google+ instagram, etc) work to build your online identity, Secret does not. From Boy Genius Report,

When first installed, the app digs into the contacts you already have in your iPhone’s phonebook and links you to each and every one that also has Secret installed. There are no accounts, profiles or contact lists and you cannot “friend” other Secret users from within the app. Messages and photos you share are visible to everyone you know who also has Secret installed. If they “like” a post, it spreads and becomes visible to all of their contacts. And so on.

There are so many things that fascinate me here. The primary reason is the idea that a percentage of us are beginning to be socially obsessed with being unrecognizable online. It might be the NSA, but the rise of disappearing snips of content being delivered by our devices is on the rise — just listen to anyone under 30 talk about Snapchat or Facebook’s Poke and you’ll see there is new value in secrecy … or in just perceived secrecy as the case may be. I suspect we will see a lot more of these apps that allow you send and receive, post and like, and just participate with people without the fear of discovery and reuse. That will be an interesting space to watch.

The app is quite simple. All you see is a scrolling list of secrets posted from people you are either directly or indirectly connected to. If you want to participate in a secret you give it a like or leave a comment. Once you do that you are connected to that secret and are following it. Will it succeed? I have no idea, but as a concept it is interesting.