FAQ

The concept is simple. We can offer much greater privacy and security because with privateLINE, your data travels on our private network that we have designed to operate separately from the internet. To protect your data, just install our secure tunnel software and create an account. The people you want to communicate with will also need the PL app to tunnel into our data center. Once you log in, you are in our enclave and you can communicate with anyone you are connected with on privateLINE.

An enclave is a protected private network area, away from the internet. We start with your phone or device and from it we create a secure connection to our servers. Our servers are in data centers that house the servers for big banks and the largest corporations - these data centers are the kind that have armed guards on patrol. Our racks are in a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility) and we use copper-free fiber optic connections, which eliminates RF signals and interference. We maintain an account with ARIN, the non-profit that issues IP addresses for the internet and we have our own 92-bit address space of IPv6 addresses.

Once you realize that you have zero expectation of privacy on the internet (because it’s a public network), it makes sense to use a private network. Everyone from Big Tech to various government agencies are constantly collecting data from the public internet. Not only is your personal information at risk of being accessed, on the public internet you are also vulnerable to threats like spam, phishing attacks, malware and targeted social media manipulation. Children and the elderly are especially vulnerable - that’s why you want to keep them on a private network, safe and protected from these threats.

Truly private cell networks have their own IP space and are not connected to the internet. We have a contract with AT&T, who is building out our private network. Starlink is also a private network that also connects to the internet through ground stations. Our plan for Starlink is to use commercial dishes at our data center to connect directly to satellites, and routing permitting, to never touch the ground between your Starlink dish and our data center. This will provide an extremely resilient communications channel. With PL, you will have three options; terrestrial internet connection with isolated secure tunnel, private cellular data and satellite.

Some of us have already been victims of fraud and censorship online, and can appreciate the importance of private and secure communications. We all have different reasons for using privateLINE - which group do you belong to? Where do you see yourself? How would privateLINE fit your needs?

• parents who want to keep their children free from the internet’s influence while still being able to communicate with them

• Homeschooling groups

• adult children who want to keep their parents from falling prey to online scammers

• businesses whose communications share confidential information

• religious organizations who are concerned with censorship

• service providers who need to communicate with their patients and clients in a secure and confidential manner

• Smaller financial organizations (accountants, wealth management type) who need a means of secure communications with their clients)

• Financial - digital currency users who need greater privacy and security

• Victims of identity theft or online fraud

• Political organizations that are wary of online censorship (e.g. New State of CA)

• People and organizations that have already experienced online censorship

• Online researchers who are concerned about censorship of information (trying to figure out what group I would fit into)

• People who have online podcast platforms who have already experienced censorship

• Journalists and online news organizations who are vulnerable to censorship and who need to protect their sources

Not everyone needs privateLINE. If you like social media like Facebook and TikTok, and use Google as your search engine, you probably don’t think you have anything to worry about. If you are concerned with protecting your valuable business and personal information….read on.

If you run a business, are in a group that values confidentiality and want to be free from intrusive marketing or if you just need more privacy for your family, you need privateLINE. When it comes to online communication, our greatest vulnerability is the public nature of the internet. privateLINE keeps you off the internet - plus, we minimize tracking and data collection (as detailed at the bottom) on privateLINE.

We noticed something odd with most of the secure messenger services. They all required a cell phone number to have an account. Why would they need that? It was puzzling, since there was no technical reason for this. The answer came from a friend who knew someone at a security agency in a southeast Asian country. Your phone number is a unique ID that is used to track you everywhere. We also had an experience where a root password was compromised inside a secure messenger – after that, we knew we needed a secure alternative.

The users of a service have a choice: they can get it for free (and have their data resold to data brokers), or they can pay to support the service and keep things private. Running a free service is difficult; they rely on sales of data and funding from governments and large donors, whose interests may not be in alignment with your interests. In November 2023, the CEO of Signal revealed that the company was experiencing financial difficulties after the U.S. intelligence community cut off its funding. Even if the service provider does not log your data, there’s nothing stopping their upstream service provider from selling your data . PL charges for the service in order to represent only YOUR interests. We keep our costs down so it’s affordable to just about everyone. If you are a journalist or whistleblower, please send an email to journo at privateline dot io

privateLINE is available for Android and iOS phones and tablets. Visit privateline.io to get an account, then download the PL app from the Play Store, the iStore or from privateline.io directly (we recommend doing it this way for greater privacy).

Visit the privateLINE website to get an account, then download and install the PL app and any other apps you would like to use (PL-Comms or PL-Meet).

The best way to be secure is to use applications that have been through a security audit and that have had all trackers removed and then hardwired to only function inside the PL enclave. Our apps won’t work anywhere else, which makes your security automatic, it’s super easy for non-technical people and superior to anything that touches the internet. It’s the best way for non-technical people to stay secure because it’s hard to make a mistake when things are set up like this.

We currently use a number of standard classic encryption schemes including SSL, RSA, and AES. We have a post-quantum cryptographic solution in the works and hope to be able to share more information in the near future. We aim to give you the strongest protection available to private individuals and businesses.

We use an account and password authentication system, which everyone is familiar with. PL-Comms uses a pass phrase to generate and recover your key for that app.

The endpoints are your phone/tablet/computer and our data center. Our data center is extremely secure. We only allow data onto our network from our secure apps running on your phone/tablet/computer – privateLINE blocks your other apps from going through our secure tunnel. Any data that does not originate from a privateLINE app will be rejected by our data center.

In the event you want even more security, you can turn on the full tunnel and enter Privacy Mode. None of your other applications will be able to access the internet and they stop working, while privateLINE apps continue to function inside the enclave. Full tunnel mode is best used on a dedicated secure phone, but will be available for regular devices (but remember, your other apps will not be able to communicate with the internet while you are in full tunnel mode).

YES! Keep in mind this would be a phone that has never touched the internet and that uses a secure OS (Graphene is being tested currently). We are building these devices for our internal team and will have DIY instructional videos to show you how to order an unlocked phone online and load the Graphene and our apps via your laptop and memory sticks (preventing your phone from touching the internet). Keep your phone in a faraday bag, fully charged and off, ready for use. When you need to make an important call to a trusted associate, you’ll be ready to turn it on and go! If you are a secure phone developer, contact bizdev at privateline dot io and we can see what it will take to support your phone on our private network.

Yes, in fact we are creating an API to allow you to do this. Focus your time on your application, not running the secure network and you can become an affiliate and earn a share of all revenue you bring to PL. If your app is something of wide interest, we can even help you sell it to our customers.

We will have a comprehensive invite function in the very near future; you’ll be able to email or text them links, or have them scan the QR code you show them on your phone, or on your business card, brochure or web site. It’ll be as easy as a click, and you’ll be connected. If you have an account, you will be able to invite and talk to anyone securely for free, once they download and install the PL app – even if they are not a paying PL Member. This powerful tool helps improve your privacy and security while staying in touch with friends and colleagues who don’t share your need for privacy and security.

“If it’s legal, you can do it” is our policy. Everything you do on privateLINE is private and encrypted end to end so only you or your group can see it. Nothing is exposed to the internet and even we can’t read your messages. Like UPS, if it’s in a brown box and doesn’t contain “explosives, corrosives or liquids,” we’ll ship it for you!

That said, if we see or have reported any illegal activity, pornography or other activities that can cause harm to other Members, or if we are contacted by law enforcement with a valid court order, we will have to step in and investigate and if warranted, take action. Protecting all Members is a responsibility we take seriously on behalf of the community.

We have run services previously in Iceland and while we greatly admire the people and country of Iceland, we ran into difficulties with the limited connections to the outside world. Also, as soon as you cross international borders, your traffic is subject to greater scrutiny than if you stayed in your own country - even when the traffic travels on a private network. Another reason is the USA enjoys the protection of some of the strongest free speech laws in the world and of course, some of the best tech infrastructure anywhere.

privateLINE is entirely funded by a number of successful high tech entrepreneurs who strongly support your freedom of communication and belief. We have received zero government, VC or Big Tech funding, unlike the major secure messenger services. Our budget has no room for anything woke.

This is more completely described in our Privacy Policy (link to Privacy Policy https://privateline.io/legal/privacy-policy). We retain the minimal data needed to operate our service. We do not require a phone number from you, and you can choose to pay with cryptocurrencies if you don’t want to leave any footprints. There is always a choice between convenience and privacy, and if you want to do the work to stay private, we’ll support you! If you choose to pay via credit card or Paypal, the payment services will retain these financial records (we don’t keep them). If you provide a cell number or email address for us to reach you for support or to receive messages outside the enclave, we never resell your personal information and only use that information to message you about the service. We have intentionally stripped out all Big Tech tools that phone home (i.e. CAPTCHA, fonts, maps, etc) and self-host our web site analytics and ticketing system, so that data will not leak to a third party vendor. We are very careful with everything we bring into the enclave - because we use it ourselves.