Bitmessage is a decentralized, encrypted,

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...

, trustless

communications protocol A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any kind of variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics and synchron ...

that can be used by one person to send encrypted messages to another person, or to multiple subscribers. Bitmessage was conceived by software developer Jonathan Warren, who based its design on the decentralized

digital currency Digital currency (digital money, electronic money or electronic currency) is any currency, money, or money-like asset that is primarily managed, stored or exchanged on digital computer systems, especially over the internet. Types of digital cu ...

, Bitcoin. The software was released in November 2012 under the

MIT license The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license comp ...

. Bitmessage gained a reputation for being out of reach of warrantless

wiretapping Telephone tapping (also wire tapping or wiretapping in American English) is the monitoring of telephone and Internet-based conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitori ...

conducted by the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collectio ...

(NSA), due to the decentralized nature of the protocol, and its encryption being difficult to crack. As a result, downloads of the Bitmessage program increased fivefold during June 2013, after news broke of classified email surveillance activities conducted by the NSA. Bitmessage has also been mentioned as an experimental alternative to email by ''

Popular Science ''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, inclu ...

'' and

CNET ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and telev ...

. Some

ransomware Ransomware is a type of malware from cryptovirology that threatens to publish the victim's personal data or permanently block access to it unless a ransom is paid off. While some simple ransomware may lock the system without damaging any files, ...

programs instruct affected users to use Bitmessage to communicate with the attackers. PyBitmessage version 0.6.2 (March 1, 2017) had a

remote code execution In computer security, arbitrary code execution (ACE) is an attacker's ability to run any commands or code of the attacker's choice on a target machine or in a target process. An arbitrary code execution vulnerability is a security flaw in softwa ...

vulnerability. It was fixed in version 0.6.3 (February 13, 2018).

References

External links

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Alternative bitmessage client
{{Cryptographic software Cryptographic software Free software programmed in Python Email authentication Internet privacy software Open standards Peer-to-peer software Software using the MIT license Tor onion services

References

Further reading

External links