I was quite surprised by discovering this new startup from Reunion Island – an Island where I live, trying to solve quite painful problem these days – privacy and security for individuals. What if the way to go to the personal security and privacy lead through our own protection, without letting the others spy at our data we're exchanging with our peers, between individuals, or groups. Perhaps the way to go is to to encrypt the data before it leaves the desktop. That's exactly what they're trying to do. Secure Content Sharing And Messaging systems are quite popular after the NSA got uncovered with Edward Snowden.
The company is still in beta phase, but they have a quite cool vision of messaging and sharing content based on encrypting the data before they leave your desktop. The name of the company is Ansamb and was founded by a team of PhDs in Computer Science and Cognitive psychology. The product they're working on is called Places and it's based on Open Source so anyone can contribute.
Your content is encrypted before it leaves your machine, so the ISP, or any other third party provider you're using, they see nothing. You can secure your communication or content (pics, documents, etc…) and as you can see in the video. The content is stored through Places, not on the internet.
Quote from the site:
Places uses the highest encryption standards available. On the client side encryption, we use an algorithm that mixes asymetric (RSA 2048) and symetric encryption (aes-248). Therefore, your content is securely encrypted on your device before it even goes on the Internet.
There is a video explaining the concept:
The application – Places got a TV coverage at the local TV channel, and I got quite hooked on the simple idea and concept. However there isn't much detailed information about the product itself on the website and the only think you can do is to subscribe to the newsletter to get notified when the product become available.
Quote:
When we share pictures or files on the Web, we know that somehow, someone in a company or a government can access our content. We know that theses contents are backed-up and will stay on someone’s server forever. We consider that privacy is for sharing what liberty of speech is for democracy. Sharing under surveillance is not an option. With Places the era of total privacy on the Web starts now!
It's quite a nice surprise that even at Reunion Island where I live there are some cool startups trying to do cool products. During the beta stage the product is free and after it should start offering an encrypted storage at remote secure location. But the details are not known for the moment.
Source: Joinplaces.com
Vladan, thank you for sharing this useful content!
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