
Encrypted social network vies for disgruntled WhatsApp, Facebook users - jonajon
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2067920/encrypted-social-network-vies-for-disgruntled-whatsapp-facebook-users.html
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kunai
This is the _wrong_ idea of what an encrypted and secure social network should
be.

Networks need to be moving away from this centralized model into a system of
routed nodes for a secure, encrypted peer-to-peer system. The whole point of
something like BitTorrent is that it is distributed -- there's no "middle-
manager" you have to go through. Aether has got the right idea and I love its
dark, underground aesthetic. But making another social network that exists
based on a centralized model is just the wrong way to go. It's another weak
spot, and there's no transparency. It's not open either, which is arguably
even worse than having a central system in the first place. You're still faced
with the absurd bureaucracy of a ToS and proprietary software, and while the
content itself is encrypted, the "metadata" still isn't, which renders
everything moot anyway. Timestamped messages are still too much information to
be giving away to people, and we don't know if the creators of this service
are going to hold their ground.

Hell, for all we know it could be a honeypot (probably not though).

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na85
>The whole point of something like BitTorrent is that it is distributed

Yep that's true, but I'm so sick of projects that shoehorn everything into
BitTorrent. The simple fact is that a lot of us don't have epic bandwidth, and
BitTorrent is really poorly behaved in terms of how greedily it will saturate
your connection.

It's the reason I don't want to run e.g. a Tor node or a CJDNS router.

Call me cheap, but I pay for my bandwidth and I don't want to have to deal
with slow video streaming or high ping times just so someone I've never met
can buy their drugs on silkroad.

~~~
XorNot
Which is where everyone seems to forgetting that Facebook, Google - all these
services. They're _not_ free. Nothing is.

You get a lot of service storage and availability wise from Facebook and
Google and the like, and you pay for it by being _not_ anonymous. The fact
that so-called anonymous social network services never get any traction is
because when you get down to it, no one wants to pay the costs for Facebook
level service directly.

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gwu78
Surprise. Another purportedly "secure" application where the developers are
not releasing the full sourse code.

I just don't understand what the theory is behind a closed source application
that purports to be "secure". This is a very bold claim to make. How does the
educated user decide whether she wants to trust the developers? She is not
permitted to see their work.

Maybe there is something to be said for putting your code out in the open and
letting everyone see what you've done. Letting others review your code and
submit fixes (e.g. for platform specific issues). And then having numerous
very determined people try to find serious flaws, and fail to find any.

Then again, maybe not. But one thing is for sure: Closed source does not allow
that vetting process to happen.

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dweinus
I don't disagree with your points at all, but for what it is worth, they say
they will be opening the source "Soon"[1] and have started populating a Github
account[2].

1\. [https://getsyme.com/faq](https://getsyme.com/faq)

2\. [https://github.com/symeapp](https://github.com/symeapp)

~~~
gwu78
Yes, I didn't mention it, but I have seen this before as well (other projects
aimed at secure communications who "launch" but "delay" the release of the
source code); I find this "delayed/promised open source" tactic equally
perplexing. If they later release the source code, but users are already
blindly routing their sensitive information through the system (because they
launched first, before releasing the code), then it's too late for those users
if it is later found the software is not trustworthy.

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insendx
Sure, I'll just go ahead and trust you're not giving away the keys like
facebook and whatzapp. Ludicrous.

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timbro
So it's basically the messaging part of
[http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/](http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/)

~~~
salient
If only Retroshare had a more modern and easier to use interface. If you want
"mainstream users" to use services and apps that are privacy and security
oriented, that's kind of a requirement.

Aether is another similar attempt to Syme, although it's more Reddit than
Facebook:

[http://www.getaether.net/](http://www.getaether.net/)

