Google hires creator of Aether, an encrypted social network

Burak Nehbit, creator of the Aether network, has accepted a position at Google. The 23-year-old revealed the change in role on Twitter over the weekend, telling The Verge that despite the hire, work on the encrypted content-sharing network will continue. After some contract negotiation, Nehbit was able to keep Aether “out of his employment contract” with the California-based company.

Burak Nehbit, the 23-year-old author of the well liked Aether content-sharing network, has accepted a job with Google. After revealing the news on Twitter over the weekend, Nehbit told The Verge that he still very much intends to keep Aether development going, noting that he managed to keep it out of his employment contract with Mountain View. The encrypted distributed network that Nehbit coded and designed single-handedly attracted the attention of both Google and Facebook, he says, with both submitting job offers. Eric Schmidt did recently say that encryption would solve many of the world’s problems, though Nehbit’s role at Google will actually be rather different from what he’s been doing so far. He’ll be part of YouTube’s user experience design team, focusing on the front end presentation rather than the stuff behind the scenes.