Why you should consider Syme over Facebook

karp.id.au

13 points·jonajon··6 comments

Heh.. telling my peers to choose an alternative to Facebook is hard enough, telling them it also costs money will make them instantly continue using Facebook.

And they will say "If it aint broken, don't fix it" and "I don't have anything to hide, i don't need to switch".

It's free!

Doesn't posting your public key for all to see on the internet mean any authorities you're trying to avoid giving access to your data can simply use said public key and get it anyway?

To decrypt messages, you need a private key, not a public key. On Syme, private keys are only available to you, and public keys are only available to your group members. We don't have access to either one of those.

If you're interested in learning more about how our crypto system works, you can check out our white paper on Github (https://github.com/symeapp/syme).

What is the point of keeping your social network activity secure if using this system will make you a person of interest, which will likely increase surveillance?

If you care about your privacy and are uncomfortable with the idea of someone reading your emails or social media activity, encryption is pretty much the only way to protect what you share, whether you're a target or not. I don't think that using an encryption app is enough to make you a serious, individual target.

I think the problem isn't only in surveillance -- it's in giving private companies access and control over heaps of data on our personal lives.

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