Secure messaging compendium

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Whisper

Talks and specs

In general, some of the links are dated 2015 whereas the protocol has moved to version 6 by now..

• EIP-627 - Vlad Gluhovsky’s proposal to document the protocol. There’s some interesting discussion in the PR thread about supporting multiple topics per message - now a parity extension (psh)
• Whisper PoC Protocol spec - this looks like one of the most detailed accounts of the thinking that went into whisper
• Whisper Proposal - Ethereum Wiki - some high-level overview and background discussion
• Whisper Overview - Ethereum Wiki - Useful section on use cases describing the effect of supplying different combinations of keys and encryption
• DEVCON1: Shh! Whisper - Gavin Wood
• DEVCON3: Whisper: Achieving Darkness - Vlad Gluhovsky, Guillaume Ballet
• Scuttlebutt talks

Status notes and usages

• Call notes, Vlad/Status
• Status whisper research - V5-V6 difference, status implementation notes and what status needs the procotocol for
• Open issues brainstorming - round-table on what whisper pain points are held with our Whisper devs (2018-04-18)
• Messsage spec, clojure
• Protocol background work doc
• Status wiki whisper docs, including V5/V6 comparison
• How-status-uses-whisper thread
• Mail-server topic-vs-bloom discussion
• JS usage example - how to post a message to the chat

Push notification

• Push notifications v2 - idea for the next iteration of PN
• Whisper push notifications - this looks like the most recent one (?)
• Push notification market
• Where we are at
• Original proposal

PSS - postal service over swarm

• Swarm PSS - architectural notes, crucial quote: Optionally routing can be turned off, forcing the message to be sent to all peers, similar to the behavior of the whisper protocol.
  PSS = bzz whispered - initial PSS idea description
  PSS hacking - Group chat using mutable resources from Mainframe / PSS

Related ETH projects

• Mainframe - Swarm/PSS user?
• Bloom - whisper use-cases
• Origin - distributed log-based messenger, as well as an IPFS-based replicated log database

Secure messaging - Non-ethereum

• Building a secure messenger - EFF
• Tox - distributed secure chat, DHT-based P2P lookup with lots of clients
• Briar - messaging app employing several censorship-resitance techniques, like direct device-to-device comms (bluetooth, wifi), tor routing,
• FireChat - mesh comms, closed source
• Wire - Open source messenger with lots of transparency around security
• Vuvuzela - metadata-leak-resistant chat protocol / application, also alpenhorn that takes care of contact setup / key exchange
• cwtch - extension of the Ricochet protocol that provides asynchronous, offline and multi-party metadata resistant messaging
• Scuttlebutt - open source, p2p replicated ledgers. 3 year old ecosystem, in active use. Offline friendly. Recent Android app (runs peer instance) https://manyver.se

Security / encryption

• X3DH - key exchange protocol for async comms with an intermediary server involved
• On Ends-to-Ends Encryption: Asynchronous Group Messaging with Strong Security Guarantees - Continuation of Signal Double Ratchet
• Megolm - An AES-based cryptographic ratchet intended for group communications

Alternate protocol

• Salsify - real-time Internet video that jointly controls a video codec and a network transport protocol

PSS Open issues

• Mutable resources, how to find last message? binary search?
• Swap incentives?