Cybersecurity awareness has been on the constant uprise since the Snowden leaks in June. And while he's been hiding out in Russian airports, social networks have also decided to become more transparent with the government's solicitation of user data in the name of national security. Google's been doing it for a while, Facebook jumped on the bandwagon a few weeks ago and as recently as today, Yahoo published data about government requests for its user's information – even if it's a relatively small percentage of users.
Because of this, the need for innovation in the cybersecurity realm has reached a critical peak. Americans want protection from Big Brother. And one man in Leesburg, Va., is working toward a Twitter-like social network that keeps all of your activity safe from snooping feds. And if he can get his Kickstarter funded by Sept. 14, he promises to give Americans a safer social network sometime later this year.
Called Trsst (pronounced trist, but an obvious play on the word trust with RSS embedded in the middle), developer Michael Powers says it looks and feels like Twitter, but is RSS-based. Therefore, as a user, you can follow other Trsst users, as well as RSS feeds, leaving your feed open to almost anything on the web. Additionally, anyone with an RSS reader can follow your Trsst account. This program doesn't aim for exclusivity, but openness.
"But that's just the tip," as Powers says on his explanatory video featured on his Kickstarter. "What's really important about Trsst is what's beneath the surface." The plan is that everything you do on Trsst is safe and protected. If you post something publicly to those who follow you on Trsst or by RSS, it will be digitally signed, verifying that the end product has not been censored or altered. So let the F-bombs fly, and if you hate something, fear not – let the world know. Additionally, when you decide to communicate directly and privately with someone, that post will be encrypted – not even the Trsst operators will have the key to that encryption, so they couldn't sell your secrets to the government even if they wanted to. And best of all, any user output through Trsst is decentralized: instead of sitting on one server, content is spread out among several servers. So not only is it near impossible to find your data with Trsst, but if someone did ... well, good luck unlocking it.
If all goes as planned (aka, he gets the rest of his funding in the next week), Trsst's beta version will begin rolling out in December to those who have backed the Kickstarter. And those who get in on the early versions will have the chance to express feedback and help shape Trsst for the future. Powers claims that the final product will come in a nice, neat package that will be friendly to users and not overburden them with complicated security features. And that will likely be the true test on whether his product succeeds or not. Because, despite the ongoing issues with privacy on social media platforms such as Facebook, people still cling to them because of the usability and design. And though Powers does not intend to compete with the giants, but rather embrace them and potentially one day even integrate them into Trsst, he's still going to have to attract users with something that looks good and feels good.
Nevertheless, he has a convincing platform and the federal government's cyber snooping is probably worse than we even know, so it's imperative to take a step in this direction. So if you believe in Powers' Trsst, then you should probably go fund him and help make social networking a more comfortable and open place again.
