Decentralising end-to-end encryption with a new security protocol

Messaging services like WhatsApp and Telegram use end-to-end encryption to secure messages sent and received. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have devised a new security protocol to decentralise E2E, enabling users to store their messages in a more flexible network. The system is an extension of the steady group key settlement — a previously developed safety protocol that permits a group of people to send and receive messages without relaying on a message group supervisor. “If your message is routed through one server and the company raises the prices or shuts down, you could switch to another server seamlessly,” the team noted. “If that’s blocked too, or if the whole Internet is shut down, they could switch to using a mesh network in which nearby devices connect over Bluetooth,” the team said in a paper titled ‘Key Agreement for Decentralized Secure Group Messaging with Strong Security Guarantees’.