Inside Snugg's Encryption: How We Guarantee Privacy
Don't trust us. Verify us.
That's not just a catchy tagline. It's the foundation of how Snugg works.
When I tell people that Snugg uses end-to-end encryption, I often get the same response: "Yeah, so does WhatsApp. So what?" (As I explained in "Encrypted" Doesn't Mean "Private", that's exactly the right question to ask.)
Here's what makes Snugg different: We can't read your content even if we wanted to.
Not "we won't read it" or "we promise not to read it."
We physically cannot read your posts, messages, photos, or videos.
And we can prove it.
Let me show you how.
The Promise: What We Cannot See
Before I explain how the encryption works, let me be crystal clear about what Snugg cannot access:
Your Content:
- ❌ Your posts
- ❌ Your comments
- ❌ Your direct messages
- ❌ Your photos
- ❌ Your videos
- ❌ Your reactions
Your Metadata:
- ❌ Who you're messaging with
- ❌ Who's in your groups
- ❌ What you're posting about
- ❌ When you post (beyond 5-minute windows)
- ❌ Who reacts to what
- ❌ Your usage patterns
What We Can See:
- ✅ That you have an account (your email)
- ✅ When you last logged in (roughly)
- ✅ How much storage you're using
- ✅ That encrypted data exists on our servers
That's it. We're not being noble or making a promise we could break later. The architecture makes it impossible for us to access your content.
How End-to-End Encryption Works (The Simple Version)
Think of end-to-end encryption like a lockbox system.
Traditional Social Media (Facebook, Instagram):
1. You write a post
2. You hand it to Facebook
3. Facebook reads it, stores it, analyzes it
4. Facebook shows it to your friends
5. Facebook can sell ads based on what you wrote
Snugg's End-to-End Encryption:
1. You write a post
2. Your device locks it in an encrypted box before sending
3. We store the locked box (but don't have the key)
4. Your friends' devices receive the locked box
5. Their devices unlock it with their keys
6. We never see what's inside
The critical difference: Encryption happens on your device before anything leaves it.
By the time your content reaches our servers, it's already encrypted. We're just storing encrypted gibberish that only you and your intended recipients can decrypt.
The Technical Reality: What "End-to-End" Actually Means
When companies say "end-to-end encrypted," they should mean this:
End = Your Device → End = Recipient's Device
The content is encrypted on the sender's device and can only be decrypted on the recipient's device. Nobody in the middle—not the company, not hackers, not governments—can read it.
But here's the problem: not all "end-to-end encryption" is created equal.
WhatsApp:
- ✅ Messages are end-to-end encrypted
- ❌ They collect extensive metadata (who you message, when, how often)
- ❌ Owned by Meta (shares data with Facebook/Instagram)
- ❌ Backups aren't encrypted (if you use iCloud/Google Drive)
Telegram:
- ❌ Regular chats are NOT end-to-end encrypted
- ✅ "Secret Chats" are encrypted (but you have to manually enable them)
- ❌ Group chats are not encrypted at all
- ❌ They can read your regular messages
Signal:
- ✅ Everything is end-to-end encrypted by default
- ✅ Minimal metadata collection
- ✅ Open source and audited
- ❌ Only messaging (no social feed features)
Snugg:
- ✅ Everything is end-to-end encrypted by default (messages AND posts)
- ✅ Advanced metadata protection
- ✅ Open source (launching with code available)
- ✅ Social feed + messaging in one platform
Under the Hood: How Snugg's Encryption Works
You don't need to understand the technical details to use Snugg, but I want to show you exactly what happens so you can verify our claims.
Step 1: Key Generation (When You Sign Up)
When you create a Snugg account, several things happen on your device:
1. You choose a password (we never see this)
2. Your device generates encryption keys from your password
3. Your device creates a unique key pair for you
4. Your device encrypts your private key with your password
5. We store your encrypted private key (but can't decrypt it)
6. We store your public key (needed for others to send you encrypted content)
Critical point: Your private key never leaves your device in an unencrypted form. We store it encrypted, and only your password can decrypt it.
Step 2: Group Creation (When You Make a Group)
When you create a group:
1. Your device generates a random group key (256-bit encryption key)
2. Your device encrypts this group key separately for each member
3. We store these encrypted versions
4. Each member's device decrypts their copy using their private key
5. We never see the actual group key
Result: Everyone in the group has the key to encrypt/decrypt group content, but we don't.
Step 3: Posting Content (When You Share)
When you post to a group:
1. Your device generates a unique key for this specific post
2. Your device encrypts your content with this post key
3. Your device encrypts the post key with the group key
4. Your device sends us the encrypted bundle
5. We store encrypted gibberish
When group members view your post:
1. Their devices download the encrypted bundle
2. Their devices decrypt the post key using the group key
3. Their devices decrypt the content using the post key
4. They see your content; we never did
Step 4: Photos and Videos
Media encryption works similarly but with an important difference:
1. Your device encrypts each photo/video separately
2. Your device generates a unique encryption key per file
3. Your device uploads the encrypted file to our storage
4. We store encrypted binary data (looks like random noise)
5. Recipients download and decrypt on their devices
We can see that a 5MB encrypted file exists. We cannot see if it's a photo of your cat, your vacation, or your kids' birthday party.
What Makes Snugg's Encryption Different
Okay, so we use end-to-end encryption. So does Signal. What makes Snugg special?
1. Encrypted Social Features (Not Just Messaging)
Signal is incredible for messaging. But it's not a social platform.
Snugg encrypts:
- Persistent social feeds (posts don't disappear)
- Comments on posts
- Reactions (likes, hearts, etc.)
- Photos and videos
- Group feeds with history
- Direct messages
This is technically harder than just encrypting messages. Posts have metadata (who posted, when, to which group). Comments have threading. Reactions need to be countable.
We had to design a system that keeps all this encrypted while still making it functional.
2. Metadata Protection
Most encrypted messaging apps leak metadata. They have to—otherwise they can't route messages.
WhatsApp knows:
- Who you message
- When you message
- How often you message
- Your contact list
- Group memberships
Signal minimizes this but still needs:
- Your phone number
- When you're online (roughly)
- Who you're messaging (they use sealed sender to minimize this)
Snugg's metadata protection goes further:
Group Membership: We encrypt the list of who's in each group. We know a group exists, but we don't know who's in it.
Post Authors: We use "capability tokens" so posts can be anonymous to us. We know someone in the group posted, but not who.
Temporal Fuzzing: We round timestamps to 5-minute intervals. We know a post happened between 2:00pm and 2:05pm, but not the exact second.
Encrypted Reactions: We store reactions in an encrypted manifest inside each post. We can't see who reacted to what.
Is this overkill? Maybe. But metadata can reveal a lot. We'd rather protect too much than too little.
3. Cryptographic Deletion
When you delete content on most platforms, it's "deleted" in the sense that you can't see it anymore. But it still exists in backups, archives, and company systems.
Snugg offers true deletion:
When you delete a post or leave a group, you can choose to destroy the encryption keys. Once the keys are destroyed, the encrypted content becomes permanently unreadable—even to you, even to us.
This is cryptographic deletion. The data still exists (as encrypted gibberish), but without the keys, it's impossible to decrypt. Not difficult—impossible.
Even if someone stole our entire database, deleted content would remain encrypted forever.
The Open Source Promise: Don't Trust Us, Verify Us
Here's the thing about privacy claims: you shouldn't just believe us.
Companies make promises all the time. Facebook promised your data would be private. Then they sold it to Cambridge Analytica. Twitter promised end-to-end encrypted DMs. Then they abandoned the plan.
So how can you trust Snugg?
Don't. Verify instead.
Our Code Is Public
Snugg's source code will be published on GitHub when we launch. Anyone can:
- Read the code
- Verify the encryption implementation
- Check that we're doing what we say
- Run security audits
- Report vulnerabilities
Independent Security Audits
We're scheduling third-party security audits with professional security firms. They'll:
- Review our code
- Test for vulnerabilities
- Verify our encryption claims
- Publish their findings publicly
We'll publish these audit reports on our website. If they find issues, we'll fix them and re-audit.
Bug Bounty Program
We're launching a bug bounty program where security researchers can earn money by finding vulnerabilities. The best way to ensure security is to invite smart people to try to break it.
You Can Export Everything
At any time, you can export all your data from Snugg. You'll get:
- Your encrypted data
- Your encryption keys
- Proof of what we have access to (or rather, what we don't)
You can verify that everything is encrypted exactly as we claim.
What About the Keys?
I know what you're thinking: "If everything is encrypted with keys, and those keys are generated from my password, what happens if I forget my password?"
The honest answer: You lose access to your content.
This is the trade-off of true end-to-end encryption. We cannot reset your password and give you back access, because we never had access to begin with.
If we could recover your content when you forget your password, then we can access your content anytime.
That's the test of real encryption: If the company can recover your data, they can read your data.
What we offer instead:
1. Recovery codes: When you sign up, we generate recovery codes you can save safely. These let you regain access if you forget your password.
2. Secure backup: You can optionally encrypt your keys with a separate recovery key and store it securely.
3. Clear warnings: We'll warn you extensively during setup about the importance of your password.
This is less convenient than other platforms. But it's the price of real privacy.
Comparing Encryption: Snugg vs. The Rest
Let me put this in a simple table:
| Feature | Facebook/Instagram | Signal | Telegram | Snugg | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Messages encrypted | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ⚠️ (manual) | ✅ |
| Posts encrypted | ❌ | N/A | N/A | ❌ | ✅ |
| Photos encrypted | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ⚠️ (manual) | ✅ |
| Metadata protected | ❌ | ❌ | ⚠️ (minimal) | ❌ | ✅ |
| Open source | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ⚠️ (partial) | ✅ |
| Independent audit | ❌ | ⚠️ (for protocol) | ✅ | ⚠️ (limited) | ✅ (planned) |
| Company can read | ✅ Yes | ❌ No | ❌ No | ✅ Yes (regular chats) | ❌ No |
The Technical Stack (For the Nerds)
If you want to verify our implementation, here's exactly what we use:
Encryption Library: TweetNaCl.js v1.0.3
- Audited, stable, widely deployed
- 7KB footprint
- Used by major security-focused applications
Algorithms:
- Symmetric encryption: XSalsa20-Poly1305 (authenticated encryption, 256-bit keys)
- Key exchange: X25519 (Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman)
- Signatures: Ed25519 (for capability tokens)
- Hashing: BLAKE2b (for fingerprints), SHA-256 (for key derivation)
- Key derivation: PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256 (100,000 iterations)
Why these choices?
- XSalsa20-Poly1305: Fast, secure, provides authenticated encryption (prevents tampering)
- X25519: Industry standard for key exchange, used by Signal Protocol
- Ed25519: Fast signature algorithm, used by Signal and many secure systems
- PBKDF2 with 100k iterations: Slows down password guessing attacks
These are the same primitives used by Signal, age encryption, and other security-focused systems.
Common Questions
Q: "If it's so secure, can't criminals use it?"
Yes. Just like they can use Signal, proton mail, or encrypted phones.
Privacy is a fundamental right, not just for perfect people. The same encryption that protects activists, journalists, and abuse survivors also protects criminals.
We're building a tool. Like any tool, it can be misused. But the benefits of privacy for normal people far outweigh the risks.
Q: "What if you get a government request for data?"
We'll comply with valid legal requests—but we can only give what we have.
What we can provide:
- That an account exists
- Email address (if provided)
- When account was created
- Approximate login times
- Storage usage
What we cannot provide:
- Content of posts or messages (we don't have the keys)
- Who's in which groups (encrypted)
- Who posted what (anonymized with capability tokens)
- Your actual photos or videos (encrypted)
This isn't defiance—it's technical reality. We physically cannot decrypt your content.
Q: "How do I know you won't change this later?"
You don't have to trust us. The code is open source. If we change it to reduce privacy, everyone can see it.
Also, changing end-to-end encryption architecture isn't a small tweak. It would require:
- Rewriting core encryption systems
- Forcing all users to update
- Explaining why we're reducing privacy
Our business model (subscription) doesn't require accessing your data. We have no incentive to weaken encryption.
Q: "Is this legal?"
Yes. End-to-end encryption is legal in most countries. Signal, WhatsApp, and iMessage all use it.
Some governments don't like it. Too bad. Privacy is a human right.
The Bottom Line: Privacy By Architecture, Not By Promise
Here's what separates Snugg from platforms that just promise privacy:
Facebook/Instagram say: "We won't read your data (but we totally can and do)."
Snugg says: "We can't read your data. Here's the code. Verify it yourself."
This is privacy by design, not privacy by policy.
- Policy can change with a business decision
- Policy can be violated without you knowing
- Policy depends on trusting the company
Architecture cannot be easily changed:
- It's built into the foundation
- Changes are visible in the code
- It doesn't require trust—you can verify
Want to Verify? Here's How
When we launch, you can verify every claim I've made:
1. Check the code on GitHub
2. Read the security audit (we'll publish it)
3. Export your data and examine the encryption
4. Run the code yourself (it's open source)
5. Report issues through our bug bounty program
We're not asking you to trust us. We're giving you the tools to verify us.
That's the difference.
Join Us
If you're tired of platforms that claim to protect your privacy while mining your data for ad revenue, I built Snugg for you.
True end-to-end encryption. Encrypted social features. Open source. No ads. Ever.
We're looking for 1,000 founding members who want to help build this.
Join the waitlist: https://snugg.social
Questions? Email me directly: hello@snugg.social
Don't trust us. Verify us. That's the whole point.
About the Author - Sam Bartlett
I'm a yacht surveyor based in the Caribbean and the founder of Snugg. After 15 years watching social media platforms prioritize ads over genuine connection, I decided to build the alternative. I previously built and ran a successful sailing holiday business, topping Google search results for years before algorithm changes destroyed organic reach. I'm not a developer or privacy activist—just someone who got tired of platforms that forgot their purpose. When I'm not building Snugg or surveying yachts, I wish everyone had more time for sailing in beautiful places (or whatever brings you joy).
Connect with me:
- Twitter: @snugg_social
- LinkedIn: Sam Bartlett
- Email: hello@capitainesam.com
Learn more: snugg.social
Questions: hello@snugg.social