This is the <i>wrong</i> idea of what an encrypted and secure social network should be.<p>Networks need to be moving away from this centralized model into a system of routed nodes for a secure, encrypted peer-to-peer system. The whole point of something like BitTorrent is that it is distributed -- there's no "middle-manager" you have to go through. Aether has got the right idea and I love its dark, underground aesthetic. But making another social network that exists based on a centralized model is just the wrong way to go. It's another weak spot, and there's no transparency. It's not open either, which is arguably even worse than having a central system in the first place. You're still faced with the absurd bureaucracy of a ToS and proprietary software, and while the content itself is encrypted, the "metadata" still isn't, which renders everything moot anyway. Timestamped messages are still too much information to be giving away to people, and we don't know if the creators of this service are going to hold their ground.<p>Hell, for all we know it could be a honeypot (probably not though).