Signal co-founder Moxie Marlinspike launched Confer, a privacy-conscious alternative to ChatGPT and Claude, TechCrunch reported on January 18th. The service is designed so that conversations cannot be used for training or advertising because the host does not have access to them. Confer uses passkey encryption, Trusted Execution Environments, remote attestation, and open-weight models to process prompts while keeping the chat hidden from the operator. Its free tier is limited, while unlimited access costs $35 a month.

The sealed confession treats privacy as an engineering cost rather than a slogan in a settings menu. A chatbot asks for material people rarely place in ordinary search boxes, including fear, money, illness, desire, family conflict, and professional doubt. Marlinspike's design answers that intimacy with encryption and constrained access, then passes the bill to the user. The price is higher than mainstream plans because the system refuses the cheaper bargain of retention, targeting, and model training. Privacy becomes visible as friction, limit, and monthly fee. A person can still talk to a machine, but the host is built to remain outside the room.