BlockPRISM: Encrypt Messages in Social Networking Platforms

Social networking has greatly influenced online conversation, the line between strangers keep getting blurrier, while privacy have been utterly relegated to the background. Privacy as regards users personal information will continue to draw attention in lieu of targeting advertisements, and for those users who do not wish to be tracked, there is finally a solution.

BlockPRISM is nonprofit project undertaken by a group of computer science students at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam and a mechanical engineering student at Stanford University in Palo Alto, with the aim of allowing users encrypt their private messages on social networking platforms.

The goal of BlockPRISM is to enhance secure communication on the internet by creating programming tools that allow seamless integration across social media, without the user having to go through any trouble to encrypt his or her messages.

While the cryptographic technology to make this possible has existed for some time, encryption has not been widely adopted because it can be too complicated. And as a first prototype, the team have programmed a Chrome browser plugin to serve as a proof of concept.

Also, in order to complete the development cycle and to make it available on mobile devices (iOS and Android), they have equally launched what they called the indiegogo campaign.

The team is hoping to reach the widest possible audience with their campaign to meet the goal of encrypting every personal information across the social networking platforms and thus create a secure communication on the internet.