White Noise, a brand new privacy-centric messaging app, launched its alpha v0.1.0 in public beta. Constructed on Nostr’s Bitcoin-native, decentralized id system and the Messaging Layer Safety (MLS) protocol, White Noise introduces an anonymization protocol to the rising Nostr social media ecosystem that hides delicate metadata. Paired with end-to-end encrypted group chats and direct messages (DMs), it guarantees to take Nostr from an early-adopter, hobbyist expertise to a viable different on the planet of privacy-branded messaging apps like Whatsapp, Sign, or, Telegram.
Nostr, brief for “Notes and Different Stuff Transmitted by Relays,” is a decentralized, open-source protocol launched in 2021 to allow censorship-resistant communication and social networking. Not like centralized platforms like Twitter or WhatsApp, Nostr operates on an open community of unbiased relays — servers that retailer and ahead messages — permitting customers to publish posts, ship non-public messages, and share knowledge with out relying on a single firm.
The protocol is cryptographically native: Customers authenticate with non-public keys and public keys that can be utilized in Bitcoin for funds and require no identifiable person data to operate. The protocol offers customers a lot better management over their id with no need to reveal emails or telephone numbers. Whereas it has gained important reputation amongst Bitcoin customers, it lacked the precise instruments for personal group chats and anonymized direct messages.
“We began this venture as a result of we noticed no alternate options,” Max Hillebrand, founding father of White Noise and former contributor to Wasabi Pockets, informed Bitcoin Journal. “Current encrypted apps fail at scale: Including 100 individuals to a gaggle chat slows encryption to a crawl. Decentralized platforms lack non-public messaging. In the meantime, Nostr’s open relay community lets anybody broadcast concepts, however direct messages stay woefully underprotected. We realized: To guard freedom, we wanted to merge these methods.”
White Noise addresses these issues in Nostr privateness with using MLS, the “Messaging Layer Safety” encryption customary developed by the Web Engineering Job Pressure (IETF), which was based in 1986, and is a premier requirements improvement group for the web.
Not like Nostr DMs and public posts at present, White Noise’s app guarantees to obfuscate who’s sending what to whom, utilizing the mature MLS encryption scheme — much like the one utilized by Sign, a well-liked privateness messaging app.
The open supply alpha invitations audits and suggestions from the privateness and Bitcoin group. Customers can discover particulars concerning the app at whitenoise.chat or join with them on X.
