Created by Berlin based designer Jochen Maria Weber, Cuckoo is a communication device that uses social network as a means of private communication. Cuckoo encrypts messages into randomly generated words, meanings and noise in order to scatter them over multiple communication networks simultaneously. Each letter of an original message gets translated into complex forms of certain length forming new sentences. Those sentences get posted to aforementioned social networks, next to randomly generated noise-sentences for distraction.

Heavy data collection, surveillance and control became normal and more important, increasingly legal on most internet communication platforms. What if we used social networks but hiding our actual information? What if we could use their infrastructure without divulging privacy? Birgitta Jónsdóttir is an Islandic politician and activist spokesperson for various groups, such as WikiLeaks. In January 2011 Jónsdóttir announced that she had been notified by Twitter that it had been served by the United States Deparment of Justice with a subpoena demanding information „about all my tweets and more since November 1st 2009.”

Cuckoo also enables the encryption method to be changed with every new message. Any receiving Cuckoo-unit following the respective social network accounts can filter and decrypt the important posts according to their encryption method and time stamp. Cuckoo combines social networks to build a hidden one on top of their infrastructure.

Created using Arduino, Temboo, Twitter/ Skype/ Tumblr APIs.

Project Page | Jochen Maria Weber