Private by default
Why Deplatformer believes online privacy protects your rights and dignity.
The Deplatformer project is dedicated to protecting deplatformed user data from unauthorized access and re-use by anyone but the creator themselves, or persons they explicitly choose to share their content with.
However, not everyone shares our concerns. You will often hear people say, "I don't need online privacy because I have nothing to hide." But these people do close the door when they use the restroom, or close the blinds when they are getting changed, and they don't leave their front door unlocked and wide open.
Some things are just private, including online behaviour and information. You don't want just anyone to be able to see your banking password, your home address, your blood test results, your person-to-person messages, your travel history, etc..
Whether its state, corporate, or criminal actors, once someone knows details about your digital life, it exposes you to be more easily manipulated by those forces, often without you even knowing.
In fact many people experience online discrimination based on their race, gender or age, without their knowledge, e.g. denial of services, non-preferred rates, negative profiling, etc..
Most critically, you never know when something that you deemed to be innocent now may be used against you at some point in the future for personal, professional, legal, or political reasons. At that point it will be too late to encrypt and protect information that is already out in the open. For example, many Hong Kong residents probably didn't think they had too much to hide five years ago but must feel much more cautious today.
Therefore, "private by default" is just smart online behaviour that protects your current and future rights, dignity, and sovereignty.
“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” — Edward Snowden
The way to keep data private online is to encrypt it. For online content this typically relies on using public key cryptography which requires the management of private keys.
One of the core principles of the Deplatformer project is that an online solution is not truly private if the user doesn't have full control over their private keys. Users must be able to easily unlock their encrypted information whenever they want to use or share it. However, this is more difficult to implement in a fully decentralized solution like Deplatformer aims to be.
Fortunately we have encryption expertise on our team. We are currently studying a promising new design pattern known as proxy re-encryption that allows for the secure delegation of decryption rights by the private key owner.
Our goal is to give our users full control over their private keys and access management without requiring us or another trusted third-party. We have only just added this to our development roadmap and are in an early R&D phase. We will keep you posted on our progress as we look to integrate promising new technologies like this into the Deplatformer stack.