Abstract
Communication is essential for human beings and we communicate globally with the means of internet every day. Internet is an interconnected mesh of networks where our data is transferred through hundreds of nodes before reaching its destination. As the intermediary network node increases, the risk of losing confidentiality and integrity is also affected. Decentralized Chat (DChat) is a chat service on the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) peer-to-peer protocol where users can communicate with ephemeral chats under any anonymous alias. The users are not aware of real identity of each other and the chats are lost from the service once the node is disconnected. The data is tamper-resistant because to alter it would change the hash and invalidate it from the network. Here we aim to develop a secure chat service that provides anonymity and ephemeral chats using cost-effective IPFS technology.
Highlights
We use internet a lot, maily for communication
Our research aims to overcome this drawback of centralization by using decentralized storage for storing the chat messages securely on Interplanetary File System (IPFS) network
Users have to visit the Decentralized Chat (DChat) web application for the first time The IPFS Server initializes a new node for the current user
Summary
We use internet a lot, maily for communication. We rely on applications like Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp. We use them to connect with our family, friends and colleagues but these applications are not ephemeral, meaning they leave an electronic trace of ours online which can be tracked down to us by a proper cyber forensic team or some skilled individual. We use chat applications often without knowing that we could under surveillance which could back fire us in an unexpected way in the future. Privacy has value to democracy, liberty and basic human rights. This has to be solved by voluntarily safeguarding and making the conversations ephemeral
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