Privacy. Security. Control.
Now available for the web.
Sitelier gives you ownership of your online life by giving you a place on the web that's your own.
Rather than having your online content and personal information scattered across dozens of websites — where it can be lost, stolen or abused — Sitelier lets you keep everything in exactly one location: your own private website. You decide what to share, with whom, and for how long.
Everything on your site is private by default: no one can see how many people you know, who your friends are, or the photos you took last weekend unless you explicitly choose to let them. You can share anything with anyone at any time – or even make some content public – but you don't have to share anything at all.
Making a purchase online? Let the vendor see only what's required to complete your order — and have the privilege expire in a week. Vendors no longer need to keep your address or billing information permanently on file in order to have it when they need it, because they can just get it from your site. And you no longer need to keep it up to date in a dozen places.
Eventually, Sitelier could enable the replacement of all the legislation pertaining to "privacy policies" with a much simpler system: companies can't store their customers' personal information, period.
Sitelier replaces the process of going to a website and logging in with launching an app by clicking its icon. Not only is this simpler and easier, it means there's no longer a password for crooks to steal, either by tricking you or hacking into the website. Even if you get an email that appears to be from your bank (but isn't), and you follow the link that takes you to a page that looks like your bank (but isn't) – what password would you enter? There isn't one!
There is, of course, the password for your Sitelier site – but not only is it much easier to protect (and remember) a single password than several, the decentralized nature of Sitelier changes the economics of phishing: since there's no single login page for all users (unlike, say, a bank), if someone tricks you into giving him your password, he also has to know where your site lives on the web in order to use it. This means he has to do per-user research, which makes phishing more expensive, and thus less appealing to criminals.
Sitelier also attacks the problem where it begins – the fake email that appears to be from your bank – by providing a secure messaging service with which your apps can communicate with you. Rather than sending you an email, once you've installed its app, your bank can simply post a message to your site. Unlike email, only trusted senders can post messages, so if you get a message in Sitelier that appears to be from your bank, it's from your bank. And unlike email or even physical mail, Sitelier messages are always encrypted, so no one can intercept them in transit and read their contents. So if your bank wants to send you a statement, a Sitelier message is the fastest, most secure way to do it.
As open-source software, anyone can look under the hood and see exactly how Sitelier works. Surprisingly, this is a crucial part of keeping it secure: anyone in the world can look for flaws and contribute to getting them fixed, making the software more secure for everyone.
Using Sitelier doesn't lock you into a vendor; it's like the difference between your house and your home. Your home can be anywhere, and you can own or you can rent. If your needs change, or you don't like your landlord, you can move. If you rent, your landlord owns the building, but has no claim to the belongings you keep inside. Sitelier is exactly the same: your site can run on a computer you own, or someone else's computer. You can easily move your site from one "landlord" (hosting provider) to another at any time, so if your hosting provider tries to claim ownership of your content, or abuses you in any way, you can simply leave, taking all of your content with you.
Another degree of control is provided by how Sitelier tackles the problem of online identity. When a user is created, Sitelier creates a globally unique cryptographic identity for him or her, and it's this identity that's used to establish secure relationships with apps and other users. Unlike other approaches to web identity, a Sitelier identity isn't tied to a web address, so it can move around the web without breaking any connections. This is how relationships work in the real world, where people are always moving around, and though you may have to dial a different number to catch up with a friend, you're still just as connected.
Unlike with a social network, your Sitelier identity is truly yours – it isn't corporate property, and neither are your friendships or connections with family members. Social links in Sitelier are direct connections, site-to-site, and don't depend on anything else.
Though your identity needs to live on a site, it can live on any site – and even move sites. This allows, for example, a couple who just got engaged to create a new site for their new family and move their individual identities to it, along with all their content and apps. They can continue sharing with friends and family without interruption because all their relationships stay intact, but now they have a shared home on the web where they can post vacation photos and videos – and create identities for their children.
Such a family site could also provide a supervised environment for children to access the web. Just as a child who lives at home can be watched over by his parents, a child using the family site can have his apps and online friends subject to the supervision, approval or direct control of his parents. Then when he's old enough, he can move out of the family site, and into one of his own, taking all his content and friends with him.
At the other end of life, Sitelier provides a way for us to control what happens to our online lives when we die. You could, for instance, appoint a group of family members or lifelong friends such that any two of them can inform your site, as the guardian of your online life, that you've died. This could trigger the deletion of data that's nobody's business, and then provide complete access to your data to your designated executors.