

New service injects privacy into social media through scrambled text - regandersong
http://www.arcticstartup.com/2012/01/09/neko-io-adds-private-sharing-layer-to-social-media

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mike-cardwell
"I really like this way of circumventing problems with privacy in social
media. Rather than building your own new social media service, it makes much
more sense to inject your own privacy features into anything and everything."

I really dislike this methodology. The complexity and friction it introduces
excludes the vast majority of people who don't yet, and maybe never will,
realise how they would benefit from it.

We need a distributed social network, which can't be taken down, censored or
monitored by any organisation or government, which utilises public key crypto
for privacy, and which is at least as easy to use as Facebook. An immensely
difficult project to tackle, but one that would change the World.

~~~
greenyoda
Once Facebook hears of this service they'll probably disable linking to it
from Facebook, since it takes Facebook users off-site where they can't be fed
Facebook's ads. A distributed social network that's not subject to the whims
of a single company really seems to be the only way to get control over your
privacy.

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kd1220
Being the pragmatist that I am: Why bother with public social media if you
want to say something in private? Also, from a social behavioral view, this is
very rude. It's the online equivalent of 2 or more people in a group switching
to speaking another language so someone else in the group can't understand the
topic.

~~~
markkum
Here's an example Neko.io message for you;

"I'm on a meditation trip in India. If you really need to bother me, here's my
travel schedule and emergency number;
[https://neko.io/m/g4hF/xcjZq85lyL9TTAjefE1GLw/xGf_TME2-G9YRl...](https://neko.io/m/g4hF/xcjZq85lyL9TTAjefE1GLw/xGf_TME2-G9YRl1bfTPkstbMFWMHnzWj6Sv8zJmTUBjslshVkTm_XNSLyp7D5Z1luhaV_MYJX4TCJnQuX6SqUg)

Neko.io is a utility. People post links to social networks all the time. The
above link might look long and scrambled, but most services are shortening it
automatically.

~~~
kd1220
Neko.io looks like it's trying to solve the access control list issues that
Facebook has been plagued with since... forever. But it gets no further. It
only exports these issues to all social networks.

Watch Zed Shaw's "The ACL is dead" presentation and you'll understand why.

Also it requires yet another non-standard authorization utility (Mepin?) or a
separate login. I'm phatigued by phishing.

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djbender
Maybe you shouldn't be using (public) social media then? =/

~~~
funthree
in 2004/2005 when I signed up for the facebook it was NOT a public site

~~~
ohyes
I seem to remember it being that you could see anyone at your college. Which
made it defacto public because strangers had access to your profile. (You had
no access control with your profile). As long as I had a college email I could
see anyone else's profile if they were at the same college. Networks were
college based.

People were up in arms when anyone with an email address could get in and see
their stuff. They wanted to expand their market. I think that was 2005. So in
response they hacked in some not very good privacy features.

Maybe I am misremembering, however.

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yalooze
Isn't this what Facebook Friend Lists and Google Plus Circles are for?

~~~
kaukopartio1
Can you use Facebook Friend Lists in Twitter ?

~~~
yalooze
Obviously not. I believe Twitter is the only platform of the 3 that doesn't
have a built in option to do this. It seems a bit like reinventing the wheel
to me but perhaps that's because I can't see myself using it. I guess the USP
is really cross-platform support?

~~~
kaukopartio1
Ok I see what you mean: circles. I agree that circles are old invention. But I
think security of those circles is very compromised. I like the idea about
encryption with social media.

