Move over Twitter, there could soon be a new micro-blogging social network in town.
Trsst has launched a Kickstarter campaign in a bid to offer a secure platform for encrypted messaging with Twitter-like functionality.
To break it down, Trsst will supply completely secure person-to-person messages and messages that are broadcasted will be digitally signed. The Bitcoin-style database ensures no one has any control over your data.
“Think of Trsst as an RSS reader (and writer) that works like Twitter but built for the open Web,” reads the description on the Kickstarter website. “The public stuff stays public and search-indexable, and the private stuff is encrypted and secured.
Created by Michael Powers — who is also the creator of Hotel Me and AppTap — Trsst is all about giving users back the power over their own data.
““Only you will hold your keys, so your hosting provider can’t sell you out. Trsst sites can look and feel like Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr,” Powers said. “And from day one, you can follow all your favorite sites and bloggers that post RSS feeds. And they’ll be able to follow you.”
Although Powers does not come out and say it, it is obvious Trsst was inspired by the recent revelations regarding the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) wide-spread surveillance programs such as PRISM, which can force technology companies like Facebook and Google to hand over user data.
The following is an excerpt from Powers’ explanation of why a social network like Trsst has become essential:
You’ve read the news. People are finally waking up to what the rest of us have known for some time: everything everyone does on the Internet is being collected and harvested for inevitably nefarious purpose.
Trsst mainstreams good crypto practices and usage among the general consumer audience to make global communications — on the whole and in the aggregate — more free, private, and secure.
At the end of the day, every company you trust — Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, or Baidu — is a corporation owned by shareholders and subject to governmental jurisdiction.
• At any time, the directors and shareholders of these companies may revoke their promises to you about privacy, and they may do so without even notifying you about it.
• At any time, the governments under which these companies operate may enact legislation that appropriates or nationalizes the data in their possession, including your personally identifying information and stored communications.
• This may have already happened. There is no company not under the jurisdiction of a government. No place is safe.
The only hope we have is a decentralized cryptography-based messaging infrastructure that no government can control where no corporation need be trusted and all communications are encrypted and only you hold the decryption keys.
We have the technology. And the time is now.
Revolutions are started on social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Dissidents, informants, confidential sources, journalists, and those they trust all rely on these services. Trsst will better preserve their causes, their freedom, their livelihood, and even their lives.
I hope you will agree that this needs to happen and back the project.
Powers is looking to raise $48,000 for his project and, with just 28 days left to achieve the goal, he still must raise $45,000.
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