Jack Dorsey, the founding father of Twitter and CEO of Block, has thrown his assist behind a brand new messaging software referred to as White Noise.
His endorsement follows the current launch of his white paper for Bitchat, a Bluetooth-based messaging platform with out web connectivity.
Bitchat goals to be a privacy-first chat app that ditches the web altogether to create localized chat rooms. Telephones hyperlink up by way of Bluetooth Low Power to type an advert hoc mesh the place each gadget relays, shops, and forwards end-to-end encrypted messages. Thus, chats preserve flowing, even by means of 30 m-hop chains, when networks are down or censored.
No telephone numbers, servers, or everlasting IDs are wanted, and ephemeral storage plus optionally available password-protected rooms spherical out a design meant for resilient, censorship-resistant communication anyplace individuals collect.
White Noise
White Noise is a extra typical privacy-first various to mainstream chat apps. It combines options generally discovered on Telegram, WhatsApp, and Discord with the safety structure of platforms like Sign.
The aim is to supply safe peer-to-peer messaging with out compromising on design or usability.
White Noise makes use of end-to-end encryption backed by sturdy cryptographic requirements, together with ahead secrecy and post-compromise safety. These be sure that previous and future messages stay safe even when encryption keys are compromised.
Not like conventional centralized business apps that depend on electronic mail addresses or telephone numbers, White Noise operates on a decentralized identification system constructed on Nostr’s infrastructure and the Messaging Layer Safety (MLS).
This setup permits customers to entry their identification, information, and phone lists throughout totally different apps and platforms with out being tied to a central service. It additionally permits customers to speak anonymously, an essential function in areas with widespread surveillance and web censorship.
As a substitute of counting on centralized servers, White Noise is powered by a community of distributed nodes. If a authorities or web service supplier makes an attempt to dam entry, customers can change relays or host their very own, sustaining entry with out sacrificing privateness.
In keeping with the venture’s web site, even when an ISP makes an attempt to intercept information, solely encrypted metadata is seen. Notably, this metadata doesn’t expose the message content material.
The venture said:
“Messages in White Noise are encrypted end-to-end and quickly relayed by means of a number of Nostr servers, which can not learn them and don’t completely retailer them. Relays act as transient supply factors, discarding information after transmission.”
Wanting forward, White Noise reportedly plans to introduce native Bitcoin funds by way of Lightning Community and Nostr zaps. This could allow monetary transactions immediately inside chat home windows.
The app will likely be open supply, with code revealed on GitHub. It will likely be obtainable throughout a number of platforms, together with Nostr’s Zap Retailer, Google Play (upon approval), and Apple TestFlight.
What’s most attention-grabbing right here is that Dorsey, whereas seemingly actively growing a novel ‘internet-free’ safe messaging app, seems content material to advertise potential rivals that share his privacy-first imaginative and prescient for international communications.