Communications metadata us known to be exploited by many adversaries to undermine the security of systems; to track people; +
Communications metadata is known to be exploited by many adversaries to undermine the security of systems; to track people; And to conduct large scale social networking analysis that feeds into mass surveillance systems. These systems have grave consequences for freedom, autonomy and sometimes...even life itself.
+ Cwtch is decentralized and focused on metadata-privacy in addition to communications privacy. Unlike other communication platforms, + none of your messages are routed through a centralized server that has access to metadata such as your social network of friends, or + who sent and received a particular message. +
+ +We believe that our tools should help people resist surveillance. Communications metadata is known to be exploited by many adversaries to undermine the security of systems; to track people; + and to conduct large scale social networking analysis that feeds into mass surveillance systems. And because of that, we explicitly + designed Cwtch for metadata privacy.
Cwtch Groups allow multiple parties to participate in a single conversation using an untrusted server (that cna be provided by 3rd party or +
Cwtch Groups allow multiple parties to participate in a single conversation using an untrusted server (that can be provided by 3rd party or self hosted). Server operators cannot learn how many people are in a group, or what is being discussed. If multiple groups are hosted on a single server then the server is unable to learn which messages belong to which group without the collusion of a group member. Unlike in peer-to-peer conversations, group conversations can be conducted asynchronously, so everyone in a group doesn't need to be online at the same time.
+Metadata-resistant group messaging is still an open problem. While the version we provide in Cwtch Beta is designed to be secure and metadata + private it is rather inefficient and can be misused. As such we advise caution when using it, and only provide it as an opt-in feature.
+Unlike a traditional centralized service that can offer password overrides, Cwtch stores all your data locally on your device.
+Without the password it is practically impossible for anyone to derive the key to decrypt the profile. As such that profile should be considered lost.
@@ -168,23 +196,29 @@ application when it is unpaused, or restarted.Without this background process management Cwtch would require Tor to be reinitialized - every time the app is loaded which would make it slow to start, and would make peer connection unusable on Android.
+ every time the app is loaded which would make it slow to start, and would make peer connection unusable on Android, as everytime the app went away you would go offline. -When a tor process is running it will download some amount of data in order to retrieve consensus from the Tor network. +
Note: Group connections are synchronized every time cwtch is online and it is not necessary to be online all the time when using them.
+ +When a Tor process is running it will download some amount of data in order to retrieve consensus from the Tor network. Any active onion services will also require a small amount of data to maintain their circuits and introduction points independent of any app use.
+In the future we plan to allow cwtch clients to opt-in to using an external Tor connection such as Orbot to manage Tor processes + separately from Cwtch.
The front-pane of the app has a "Shutdown Cwtch" button (with an 'X') icon. Pressing this button will trigger a dialog, and on confirmation Cwtch will be shutdown and all profiles will be unloaded.
+ +