Syme applies encryption to all submitted content, including status updates, photos and shared files. The social network stores its data in Canada and says it does not itself have access to that data.
It stands to reason that even the hugely popular Facebook will one day have a successor. Three Canadian students think they have the answer to Mark Zuckerberg’s controversial privacy trade-off model. Syme is a social network that encrypts all content, without requiring any expertise in encryption.
Group messages
As once on Google’s social network, Syme users must first be invited. The platform, named after the free-spirited character from George Orwell’s 1984, is still in beta. The functionality is still fairly basic and in many respects also recalls that other Facebook-killer: WhatsApp. Users can start group messages and invite contacts, who in turn receive the necessary decryption keys.
AES-256 and ECC-384 encryption runs via a JavaScript-based browser extension. It encrypts content before it is posted. Syme uses the Stanford JavaScript Crypto Library, a well-known open-source cryptography component. As a result, message contents cannot be intercepted, though some metadata still can be. The creators also emphasize that Syme is (for now) not intended for extremely sensitive communications.