Privacy policy

Effective 6 October 2026

Antsome is a small social app for people you already know. We keep what we need to run it and nothing more. We don't show ads, we don't use analytics or tracking tools, and we don't sell your data.

Who we are

Antsome (the app and antsome.net) is run by Lost Connection ("we", "us"). If you have a question about this policy or your data, email support@antsome.net.

The short version

• No ads, no analytics or crash-reporting tools, no tracking SDKs, and we never sell your data.
• There's no search and no suggested people. Someone can follow you only with your follow link or QR code.
• Your posts go to your followers, or just the people you pick. Your comments are shown only to people who already know you.
• Photos and videos are kept in private storage and are only handed out through links that expire after a few minutes.
• Notifications never include what anyone posted.
• You can export everything and delete your account from inside the app.

What we collect, and why

Your account

• Your handle (your address is handle@antsome.net), display name and bio. These identify you to the people you're connected to.
• Your password, which we never store as-is. We keep only a one-way argon2id hash of it, which we can check a password against but can't turn back into your password.
• A recovery email address, only if you choose to give one (when you sign up, or later in You → Settings → Account → Recovery email). It's only for getting back into your account if you forget your password, and is never shown to anyone; even in the app you see it partly hidden. The only email we ever send to it is a recovery code, and only when someone asks to reset the password for your account. While a reset is in progress we also keep a one-way hash of that code (never the code itself), which stops working after 15 minutes, after it's used, or after a few wrong tries.
• Your time zone, which the app sends so digests arrive at your local times.
• When your account was created and when your profile last changed.

Your devices

• When you sign in, the app creates a signing key on your device. The private part stays in your device's secure storage and never leaves it. We store the public key, a generic label such as "Android app" or "iOS app", whether it belongs to a web browser, when it was added or removed, and the last day it was used. Once you're signed in, every request your app makes is signed with this key, which is how we know it's you. A web browser's key that hasn't been used for 90 days is removed automatically, so that browser has to log in again.
• If you turn on notifications, we store your device's push token (issued by Apple or Google), which platform it's for, and which device key registered it. Logging out removes that device's key and push tokens.

What you share

• Posts, comments and reactions, with when they were made or edited, and who you chose to share each post with.
• Photos and videos you attach, plus their size, dimensions, length, a fingerprint (SHA-256) of the file and, for videos, a still preview frame. The app shrinks photos and re-saves them before upload, which removes embedded details such as location. Videos are compressed before upload too, and when a video reaches our server we also remove the sections of the file where details such as location, device and recording time are kept, before it's stored. (That doesn't reach inside the picture and sound data itself, which is the video.)
• When you edit a post, we keep only the new version. When you delete a post or comment, we delete its text and media and keep an empty placeholder with its date, so conversations and feeds stay in order.

Your people

• Who you follow, who follows you, pending follow requests, "follow back" offers, people you've removed or blocked, and per-person settings such as mutes.
• Your follow link. We keep a SHA-256 hash of it (to recognise it when someone uses it) and an encrypted copy (so you can see it again). It's never stored in readable form. We also keep its settings: whether you approve each new follower, and when it expires.
• People on other OFSCP apps you follow: a pointer to their posts plus the name and picture link their app showed when you followed them.
• OFSCP contacts (including requests from people on other OFSCP apps) and OFSCP groups. The Antsome app doesn't have screens for these yet.

Direct messages

Antsome can receive direct messages sent over OFSCP, the open protocol it uses (the Antsome app doesn't have a messages screen yet). A message is stored only in its recipient's inbox, on the recipient's own server. A message someone sends you is kept in your inbox here; a message you send is kept by the recipient's server, not by us.

Settings and reading position

• Notification settings: digest times and days, quiet hours, what reaches you right away, the check-in reminder, and whether names are hidden on your lock screen. We also note when your last digest was sent.
• Privacy settings, such as who can see who you follow and the two OFSCP switches.
• "Where you left off": a marker for the last post you've seen, so your feed can start there. For people on other OFSCP apps, that marker is kept only on your device.

Online status

While the app is open, our server knows your device is connected. This is held in memory only, never saved, and is hidden from everyone by default. The Antsome app doesn't show anyone's online status.

IP addresses and logs

Your IP address reaches our server with every request, as it does with any internet service. The Antsome server uses it only to limit how often someone can try things like signing in. It's held only in the server's memory and is never written to our database or our logs.

The server writes operational logs so we can keep it running and fix problems. They can contain Antsome addresses (such as handle@antsome.net) and the addresses of other servers. They don't contain passwords, recovery email addresses, recovery codes, push tokens or the text of posts.

On your device

The app keeps a copy of recent data (like your feed) on your phone, so it opens quickly and works offline. Logging out clears it.

If you use Antsome in a web browser, at antsome.net/app, the same things are kept in that browser's own storage for this site instead: your signing key (stored so that the browser can use it but nothing can copy it out), that copy of recent data, any post you're still writing and your theme choice. We don't use cookies. Logging out removes the key and the copy of your data, so log out when you're done on a computer you share. Clearing the browser's site data removes all of it too, and you'll need your password to sign in again.

Who can see what

• Your posts: your followers, or only the people you choose for that post. There are no public posts.
• Your comments: only people who are connected to you (one of you follows the other). This can't be turned off.
• Reactions show the names of the people who reacted, never a count.
• Your followers: only you can see the list. Who you follow: only you, unless you choose to show it (You → Settings → Privacy → Who sees who I follow → People I'm connected with), in which case everyone you're connected to, meaning both people who follow you and people you follow, can see it.
• Your profile (name, handle and bio) is visible only to people you're connected to: people who follow you, and people you follow.
• Your follow link: anyone you give it to, or who sees your QR code, can open a preview page showing your display name, handle and bio. A link that's been rotated or has expired shows nothing about you.
• Your address and device public keys are published so other OFSCP servers can check your signatures. That means someone who already knows your exact address can confirm it exists, but nobody can search for you or browse accounts.

The people you share with can, of course, screenshot or save what they see. Posts and messages aren't end-to-end encrypted: they're stored on our servers in a form we could read. We don't read them.

Other OFSCP apps

Antsome speaks OFSCP, an open protocol, so you can connect with people who use other apps on other servers. You control this with two switches under You → Settings → Other networks. Both are on by default, and people on other apps still need your follow link.

• If someone on another app follows you ("Let OFSCP users follow me"), their app reads the same things one of your Antsome followers could: your profile, the posts you share with them and their photos and videos, the names on reactions, and the comments they're allowed to see. From then on, that app and its server handle it under their own privacy policy. Turning the switch off stops them reading anything new.
• If you follow someone on another app ("Follow OFSCP accounts"), your app talks to their server directly. That server sees your Antsome address, your device's public key, your IP address and the requests you make (such as asking to follow). Our server only stores a pointer to what you follow.
• Our server contacts other servers only to fetch the public keys it needs to check signatures, and to tell a contact's server that the contact has ended, when you block them or delete your account.
• Direct messages and contact requests you send to someone on another app are delivered by your app to their server, which keeps them.

We can't control, or delete, what other servers and apps keep.

Services we rely on

• jkbase, Lost Connection's own hosting platform, runs our server, database and file storage. It isn't a third party.
• Apple Push Notification service (iPhone) and Google Firebase Cloud Messaging (Android) deliver notifications, if you turn them on. We send them your device's push token, the notification text and a link into the app. That text never includes what anyone posted or wrote. It can include a person's name (for example "Maya posted"), or just "New on Antsome" if you've turned on "Hide names on lock screen". The in-app link can include the author's handle, except with "Hide names on lock screen" on, when it carries only an anonymous post number. On Android, the app includes Google's Firebase messaging component; it registers your device with Google only when you turn notifications on, not before.
• Resend, an email delivery service, sends recovery codes. When you ask to reset your password, it receives your recovery email address and the message with the code, and nothing else. The message has no links, images or tracking.
• Google Play and the App Store handle downloads under their own policies.

What we don't do

• We don't show ads, and we don't sell, rent or trade your data.
• There are no analytics, advertising or crash-reporting tools in the app or on this website.
• This website loads nothing from other companies (even its fonts are our own copies) and sets no cookies, and when the iPhone app checks whether you're online it asks our own server, not anyone else's.
• We don't track you across other apps or websites.
• We don't collect your location or your phone's contacts. The camera is used only to scan follow codes, and the app only sees photos and videos you pick to share.
• There's no search, no suggested people, and no ranking of your feed.

How long we keep things

• We keep your account data until you delete it or delete your account.
• Deleting your account removes it straight away. See Delete your account for exactly what's removed and the few things that are kept, and for how long.
• An export file is deleted 7 days after it's ready.
• Photos or videos you upload but never post are deleted after about a day.
• Our database is backed up nightly, and backups are kept for about two weeks, so deleted data can remain in a backup for up to that long. If we ever restore a backup (only to recover from a failure), we re-apply every deletion made after it was taken.

Keeping it safe

• Everything between the app and our server is encrypted in transit (HTTPS).
• Passwords are stored only as argon2id hashes.
• Once you're signed in, every request is signed with a key that never leaves your device, and each signature can be used only once.
• Photos and videos sit in private storage. We check that you're allowed to see one before handing out a link to it, and that link expires after 5 minutes.
• Follow links are encrypted, and sign-in and recovery tokens are stored only as hashes.

No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your data and fix problems quickly.

Your choices and rights

• Get a copy: You → Settings → Your data → Export everything gives you a zip file with your profile, posts, comments, reactions, photos and videos, follows and followers, contacts, groups, received messages, and settings.
• Fix it: change your name and bio with Edit profile on your own profile page. Change or remove your recovery email in You → Settings → Account → Recovery email.
• Delete it: delete any post or comment, or delete your whole account.
• Limit it: choose who sees each post, approve new followers, rotate or expire your follow link, turn off the OFSCP switches, and set notifications, including turning them off.

Depending on where you live, you may have other rights over your data, such as objecting to how it's used or complaining to a data protection authority. Email us and we'll help.

Children

Antsome isn't for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect data from them. If you think a child under 13 has an account, email us and we'll delete it.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we'll update it here and change the date at the top. If a change matters, such as collecting something new, we'll do our best to let you know before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions, requests or complaints: support@antsome.net.