Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- Can AtomJump be used to replace my messaging app?
- Can AtomJump be used to replace my social media service?
- My current app has a particular feature, but AtomJump doesn’t. How is this a step forward?
- Is it safe?
- Is it secure?
- How does AtomJump make it’s money?
- Who has developed AtomJump Messaging and where are you based?
- Where is my data kept?
- Does AtomJump have a political stance?
- It doesn’t seem very easy to create a group. Why is this?
- If any user can delete any message, doesn’t that impose on my ‘freedom of speech’?
Q. Can AtomJump be used to replace my messaging app?
A. Yes, and there are some key benefits.
The Old-Style Approach | The AtomJump approach |
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Q. Can AtomJump be used to replace my social media service?
A. Yes, although it works in a slightly different fashion.
The Old-Style Approach | The AtomJump approach |
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Q. My current app has a feature, but AtomJump doesn’t. How is this a step forward?
A. You can think of AtomJump as something like a messaging ‘Lego’ solution. Each messaging service built with AtomJump software is constructed out of small building blocks called ‘plugins’. If you are missing a feature, you can easily
- search from a library of existing plugins for the feature
- write your own plugin
- employ someone else to write a new plugin
With your current messaging app, you probably won’t get a choice of modifying the features, and if you do, it will likely be written in a complex ‘high-execution-speed’ computer language. AtomJump is written in the most basic and popular server language, PHP, so most people who can put together a website can build an AtomJump plugin.
Q. Is it safe?
A. Yes, safety is our priority.
- Any message can be deleted by any user instantly (this is done anonymously). If there are any troubling messages on a forum they will soon be removed by other users, and if you’re worried about one particular message, you can delete it yourself.
- The app is 100% ‘open source’ which means that anyone can view the source code that the software was built with, and make sure there are no malicious ‘back-doors’ that make use of your information in a bad way.
- Unlike most messaging apps, which are privately operated ‘binary’ apps, the messaging within AtomJump occurs in a web browser, just like a website. There are industry-standard safety measures that browsers implement to aid in your safety, and prevent features of your phone from being misused by the app developer, such as the camera or microphone.
- Messages can be monitored by a central system administrator for hate-speech, or other issues, so that police and other authorised parties can potentially see concerning messages. Your privacy is still respected on private forums as much as possible.
Q. Is it secure?
A. Yes, but there are different levels of security.
- On AtomJump.com messages are transferred using a secure protocol between your browser and the server.
- Messages are not secured in an encrypted fashion on the server itself (this is to aid in safety, see above), although user’s passwords are.
- Any access to the server database on AtomJump.com is via an encrypted login. Only a select list of staff-members have access to the database within AtomJump, and they will likely only have access to one cluster of the database, not the whole system.
- Other installations of the software may not have been configured using an encrypted server. You can check if the address of the messaging page you are using starts with ‘https’ rather than ‘http’. If it has an ‘s’ then communications are encrypted.
- If you have a private room, you have a password that is shared amongst the group. If you do not keep this password secure, other people can read your group.
Q. How does AtomJump make it’s money?
AtomJump Messaging is a non-profit Foundation, which means that while we have operating costs, and staff members who earn an (average) salary, any money that we earn from our service goes directly back into the operation of the service itself i.e. there are no shareholders taking a profit.
The services that earn an income are mainly based on the, optional, hosting of our software. All of our products are open source and freely downloadable, but a customer can choose to have us host the product on our servers. This is usually for convenience, and customers will always have a choice to go to other providers for hosting, too.
On AtomJump.com, our public forums are free, and we sell an annual subscription to private rooms. There is no advertising on AtomJump software.
Note: while we do accept donations, we only accept equipment and core service donations (e.g. network bandwidth). Our staff salaries are paid for by the income of paying customers, only.
AtomJump also has a sister company called AtomJump Ltd. which develops a medical app called MedImage. AtomJump Ltd. pays for some of the infrastructure of the Foundation from it’s app sales.
Q. Who has developed AtomJump Messaging and where are you based?
AtomJump Messaging was developed from 2010 – 2018 by the Foundation’s founding member (Peter Abrahamson), a New Zealander, and it is now owned and developed by the AtomJump Foundation, who are a larger team with a variety of ethnic backgrounds e.g. from New Zealand, Asia and Europe.
The Foundation is largely centered in Christchurch, New Zealand, but it has an international membership. You can contact us here.
Q. Where is my data kept?
- If you are using the AtomJump.com service, then currently your data is stored on New Zealand-based servers in our custom-built facility. The server network is designed to expand into different physical locations and countries, depending on demand.
- If you are using your own private instance of the software, this could be set up on any server worldwide.
Our New Zealand facility has various protection measures in place, including
- 24-hour motion-capture video security
- an ‘organic’ server structure to help survive earthquakes
- a regular backup schedule
- backup battery power-supplies, should our mains power cut out
- isolated databases, so that if there is a loss of service from one segment of the network, other segments should continue operating
Approximately 90% of New Zealand’s electricity comes from renewable energy sources.
Apart from the server-side data, which holds the messages themselves, your browser will store your user’s login approval, in it’s cookies storage. Note: If you don’t want other people to have access to your account and groups, you should ‘logout’ at the end of the session from the ‘Settings’ page.
Q. Does AtomJump have a political stance?
As a technology-focused Foundation, AtomJump tries not to take a political stance.
Our message forums are designed so that political discussions, which tend to contain polarised viewpoints, are unlikely to flourish, unless they are kept completely constructive. This is because any user can delete any other user’s messages, anonymously.
When it comes to searching for, and filtering hate-speech on AtomJump.com, the staff involved will naturally have human-led biases. We try to select our members from as broad a cross-section of the population as possible, and many of them are purely volunteers. If you feel aggrieved at a message or group being blocked you can request that our Foundation members review and vote on the decision. Or you can approach the New Zealand Government’s ISP watchdog.
If you still feel that your case is not being listened to, we suggest you take a different approach: download the AtomJump software and create your own forums, on your own server hardware.
Q. It doesn’t seem very easy to create a group. Why is this?
It is fairly easy on AtomJump.com to create a public group (with potentially a private name). See the User Guide.
It is harder to create a private room, as there is a subscription involved for each room. This is partly to help reduce the noise from constant phone pings. See the messaging question above.
In the future, our app may make this an easier process.
Q. If any user can delete any message, doesn’t that impose on my ‘freedom of speech’?
We believe this approach is as fair as we can reasonably make it, because it applies evenly to everyone, although it tends to weigh on the side of ‘safety’ over ‘freedom’. In the end, only messages that everyone can agree to leave on a forum will actually stay there. Therefore, before posting a message, you will need to have your wording in an acceptable format for the whole audience on the forum. In general, always keep your opinions constructive.
If you feel that, for example, a Government is trying to suppress a particular type of message, perhaps you are using the wrong type of forum? You could try the main-stream media to get an important message out, rather than a live message forum, or you could set up your own AtomJump message forum and invite a different audience.
Alternatively you can design a plugin that will modify the AtomJump software so that the “Delete” option is not switched on by default!