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One of the biggest problems of modern messengers is the lack of privacy. While many apps use secure technologies and strong encryption to make messages hard to crack, it does not mean that users’ private data are properly secured. This problem may be solved with blockchain.

Messaging and privacy

Nowadays there are literally dozens of messaging apps out there. Some of them claim to be secure and protected, but in practice not everything is that simple. This is due to several different reasons.

First of all, many popular messengers are owned by big corporations that want to collect as much information as possible. Here is the Data policy of Facebook. This social network, which also operates its own Messenger, collects information and content provided by users, their connections, data about app usage, transactions and even information others provide to a certain user! This data is then used for advertising and other purposes.

Another important aspect is that most current communication tools are “closed source”, meaning that the code of these products is never published and independent researchers cannot audit it. This provides an opportunity for malicious actors to find security flaws and exploit security holes in order to steal personal information.

Finally, traditional messengers are centralized, which is also bad for privacy. Take Telegram, one of the most secure chat apps out there. It is centralized, meaning that the government can just block it, which has already happened to the service in Iran and Russia. Users in these countries are experiencing problems with access to Telegram, which may force some of them to switch to less secure alternatives. This also makes online communication less private.

All these problems raise questions about how blockchain technology can be used to solve them. One of the possible applications is data storage. Blockchain can be used for distributed data storage. The main idea here is to distribute your data across a network of peers, all over the world instead of trusting your personal information to a centralized party like Facebook.

Let’s examine the possible problems and advantages of this approach.

What can go wrong?

“Storing all of your sensitive private messages to a permissionless blockchain might be one of the most stupid things I’ve ever heard” — this Reddit user is sure that blockchain is not the best option for data storage when it comes to messaging.

There is a reasonable point in this emotional comment. Translating this into more technical language, we can say that unlike centralized messengers that rely on the security of their servers, blockchain-based apps provide free access to encrypted data. Therefore the security is provided by cryptography, and if it is weak, data could be hijacked.

The Blockchain saves messages forever.. What if later quantum computers come out? The encryption might be broken then? It is shallow thoughts:

Blockchain cannot be decrypted entirely, as each account possesses its own key

Even if a decryption method existed, it would take resources and time (money) even for quantum computers

All traffic is saved any way, whether it’s in the blockchain or not. Remember of PRISM program? If you think your government does not do it, continue thinking that way.

Blockchain allows us to create chats that can be deleted with the help of side-chains (every chat is started as a side-chain and then removed)

Decryption via quantum computers will wreak havoc upon the entire IT industry, this argument assumes that this event is only applicable to our application/project, but rather it’s relevant to the entire industry if such a theory occurs, as all information and traffic security is based upon mathematics and cryptography.

So if you’re looking for 100% security, dig a bunker at a depth of 3 km with plumbum walls. But it will be not 100%, but close to. The question is simply: Who do you trust more, corporations and governments? Or a community-built open-source product?

Blockchain has speed limitations as well. Even the fastest blockchain-based messaging tool will always be slower than traditional messengers with each message delivery time taking up to several seconds.

Advantages

On the other hand, when your data is stored in the blockchain, it is distributed all over the world. If proper security tools such as encryption are used, it becomes almost impossible to intercept messages — actually you can intercept them, but it will be just an encrypted mess, and encryption keys are never sent over the network.

Moreover, the user can get access to his or her chats from any device — which is impossible in case of secret chats in centralized messengers which are available only on the device where they were created. This exposes another security flaw — even secret chat with disappearing messages can be viewed if the malicious actor gets access to the device itself! Blockchain allows the deletion of chat history on the device and loading of it by request using a password.

Unlike traditional centralized messaging apps, blockchain messengers like ADAMANT could be viewed as “trusted” options. When using FB messenger or WhatsApp, you do not know what is happening with your message when it goes to the central server; the immutable nature of blockchain ensures that the record in this database is accurate and was not altered.

Blockchain allows creating accounts in a second, with no credentials like phone numbers and emails. This means you can switch accounts every time you want, with no traces that they were yours. Anonymity helps security — ADAMANT is planning to implement multi-accounts in a single app with convenient usage, and usual messengers wouldn’t offer such a thing.

The data in the blockchain database is also distributed all over the world, meaning that the availability is much higher than in centralized systems where the core server can go offline. For example, recently Telegram suffered a severe outage which resulted in its users in Europe, Middle East, and the CIS countries experiencing connection issues.

Another important factor is the opportunity to use blockchain as a basis for integrating chat app with other useful tools. There are also examples of instant cryptocurrency transfers directly via chat.

Final thoughts

Using a blockchain is quite a new, different approach to messaging. While this technology has some restrictions, it also provides a much higher degree of privacy than any popular centralized chat app can offer. Every messenger uses similar security tools, however, only blockchain-based solutions can be trusted as no-one can access and change your message.