The lock that doesn't protect everything
Many messaging services advertise end-to-end encryption. And it's true: the content of your messages travels encrypted. Nobody can read the text while it's in transit. So far, so good.
But the content is only part of the story. Because even though nobody can read what you say, the service does know other things: who you talk to, what time, how often, from which location, on which device, how many messages you send and receive. Those are called metadata. And metadata tells almost as much as the message itself.
What metadata reveals
You don't need to read a message to learn a lot. If someone calls an oncologist every Tuesday at nine in the morning, you don't need to hear the conversation to guess what's going on. If two people exchange a hundred messages a day and suddenly stop, you don't need to read any of them to sense what happened.
Metadata reveals behavioral patterns. Who relates to whom. What schedule each person keeps. When they're awake, when they sleep, when they travel. A server that collects metadata can build a detailed profile of your life without reading a single word you write.
What our server knows
In Solo2, the server knows you exist. It has your username and the information necessary for you to connect. Nothing else. It never saves who you talk to or how many tunnels you have. It doesn't know how many messages you send or how many you receive. It doesn't know your schedules or your location.
Messages and files travel encrypted from your device to the other person's. When a direct connection is not possible, they pass encrypted through our mirror, which does not store them and cannot read them. Connections between users are stored on each person's device. Your conversations are not stored on any server; they only travel encrypted between devices. Our server helps the two devices find each other.
Your contact list
Many messaging services ask for access to your contact list when you sign up. They upload all your phone numbers to their server to show you who else uses the service. From that moment on, the company has a complete map of your personal relationships — even if you've never sent them a single message.
Solo2 doesn't ask for your phone number, email, or access to your contacts. It doesn't know who your contacts are. Tunnels are created by sharing a linking code directly with the other person, without the server knowing who is on each end.
The difference between encrypting and being private
Encrypting means protecting the content. Being private means not collecting what you don't need. They're different things. A service can encrypt all your messages and at the same time know everything about you through metadata. It's perfectly compatible.
Solo2 encrypts the content and collects very little data. Our server stores only what an account needs. We do not store your conversations or who speaks with whom: neither the content, nor the contact list, nor the connection history.
Privacy isn't just about encrypting messages. It's about not collecting what doesn't belong to you. In Solo2, your conversation is yours. The content, the metadata, and even the very existence of the conversation.