A series of Cryptstagrams using different filters. Image: Barbarian Group

We live in a world where over-sharing is not just common, it’s encouraged. We happily, and readily, upload our photos and thoughts to the internet, where total strangers can access them with the click of a button. There was a point somewhere along the line we decided that we were OK with sacrificing privacy for the sake of human connection, or at least the online specter of human connection. But as our data becomes more valuable to the companies who access it, and we realize just how prying the eyes of our government really are, posting a photo to Instagram feels decidedly less innocuous than it used to.

Problem is, it’s not easy to change our habits, and sharing details about our lives via social media platforms certainly qualifies as one. Quitting Facebook, Twitter or Instagram cold turkey isn’t an option for most of us, mostly because we like social media, but there are ways to be smarter about what we upload and how we upload it. A clever new project from The Barbarian Group might help ease you into the practice of protecting your data. The creative agency created Cryptstagram, an online tool that allows users to upload images and encrypt them with secret messages that only the intended recipients can see. You can apply glitch art filters to your photos and get the same artsy effect you’d find on Instagram, only instead of enhancing a photo, these filters are meant to obstruct it. “The fact that most internet users don't use encryption to protect their communication is something that can be changed with increased awareness,” says Aimee Kvasir, technology director at The Barbarian Group. “We knew a little bit about steganography (via 4chan of all things), and this project was an opportunity to explore that.”

>You know the Cryptstagram page is full of messages, and yet you can't access any of them.

The project was born out of the company’s Project Popcorn program, which brings together employees from various disciplines to work on side projects every Friday. Shortly after the news about the NSA broke, Kvasir and her team, which consisted of a developer, copywriter and art and creative directors, decided to tackle the challenge of how to protect privacy without being preachy. "We were more interested in combining the themes of glitch art, government surveillance, and personal cryptography than we were with dictating a message or lesson,” says Ben Turner, a developer on the project. “The best we felt we could do was provide a tool for people to play with those themes all in one place, to contribute their own opinions and feelings into a common product: a glitched-out image with hidden messages within.”

On its most basic level, Cryptstagram works a lot like Instagram in that users upload a photo online (it's not available for mobile yet) and apply glitch art filters with names like “NSA”, “Shifty” and “White Sound.” “From purely aesthetic point of view, glitch art has an inherently subversive feel which felt in line with our intent to subvert existing encryption paradigms,” explains Kevin Chan, a senior art director, adding that people can create their own filters if they want to. During the uploading process, users have the choice to embed a secret message that's encrypted with a password. You can send a funny message, pass along confidential state department notes or divulge your deepest darkest secrets and only the people with the password will be able to read them.

For anyone who gets annoyed by private Twitter and Instagram accounts, Crypstagram is going to create a certain level of frustration. But that's the whole point. You know the Cryptstagram page you're looking at is full messages just waiting to be read, and yet you can't access any of them. Plus, the images are so distorted by the filters that your habit of casual voyeurism is quickly rendered moot.

Despite the fact that Cryptstagram is a tool, and a fun one at that, the team says the project is more a way to encourage conversation about surveillance and privacy than a way to actually encrypt important information. “We create volumes of data every day just browsing the web, texting friends, moving around with a cell phone,” Kvasir says. “Privacy protection legislation hasn't kept up with new technology. It's still largely the wild west out there with regard to what companies can do with that data.”