Fourtham

Purpose

What Makes Fourtham Unique?

• Serverless Architecture: Data is stored inside steganographic images and on local machines.
• Steganographic Communication: Data are encrypted and embedded into images, allowing data to be passed hidden-in-plain-sight across any method that can send an image.
• Pseudonymity: Private/Public keys sign and encrypt data without identifying any human individual. Each local application is pseudonymous—akin to bitcoin—keeping identifiable data at home on devices where the fourth amendment clearly applies.

The Fourth Amendment and Fourtham’s Privacy Model

The Fourth Amendment guarantees protections against unwarranted searches and seizures—but it was not designed for the internet-world. Every action you take online is logged and stored in massive data structures controlled by just a few major platforms. All your data is easy to find. This recent industrial development has transformed the meaning of the 4th amendment.

Anonymity doesn’t really exist online. The legal process to unmask an anon usually goes something like this: (1) plaintiff or prosecutor requests that a platform reveal identification data, (2) platform refuses, (3) plaintiff or prosecutor shows the court that the person’s identity cannot be found by other means, (4) Judge orders the data released, (5) plaintiff or prosecutor sues the person, (6) person is forced to produce relevant data.

The doctrine grows from the “third party doctrine” which says that a person has no reasonable expectation of privacy for information they willingly share with third parties. For example, the phone numbers a person calls is shared to the phone company, so a person loses the expectation of privacy about the phone numbers called. The implementation of this third party doctrine is completely chaotic. The legal rules vary state-by-state, by circumstance, and type of data too. There is simply no clear rule on the matter, because the law is not designed for our internet-based society—Congress cannot keep up.

The result is a simultaneously anarchic and tyrannical system of data privacy, where our entire online lives are funneled through a few giant centralized data structures and an illusion of anon-hood privacy can be destroyed by anyone with the money and legal know-how to dox. As artificial intelligence continues to enable deeper and more accurate surveilance, privacy will become more valuable.

In the United States, the fourth amendment to the US constitution provides a major barrier to a cyber-totalitarian system:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

In 1789, the application of this text was drastically different to it’s application today. Communications were passed by letter, pamphlet, and book—sometimes written by an anon. The American revolutionaries organized their efforts under anonymous names, because to be discovered could mean death. “Publius” was the anonymous author name for the federalist papers. At the time the fourth amendment was written, it was designed to ensure the ability to anonymously publish communications. Only upon a finding of probable cause, could a person’s house and effects be searched to reveal private communications and anonymous identifications. Today this protection is trampled, not necessarily by courts, but by technological and information industrial changes which have hobbled the amendment.

Fourtham gives power back to the fourth amendment. It is a true P2P networking app, free from corporate data mining, AI training, litigation doxing, state surveillance, and third-party interference. Fourtham is the steganographic application of web3 principles for encryption, compression, and inter-platform operability via image.