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Put simply, Distort restores the ability to have a closed door conversation online.
Distort is a messaging application that is different from other messaging applications. Distort conversations are private, but take place over public networks: The content of messages and the recipients of messages are hidden from everyone outside the conversation. The Distort messaging service itself, the internet, and its operators see a message, but cannot decipher its content, nor its recipient.
Put simply, Distort restores the ability to have a closed-door conversation online. In addition to that, one of Distort's objectives is to make it infeasible (computationally) to determine who is in the room, from outside the room. If fact, to take the analogy one step further, it's impossible to tell from an outsider whether a meeting even took place at all.
Despite the fact that message recipients are anonymous to outsiders, Distort allows users in a conversation to authenticate messages from their peer using digital signatures. We believe this tradeoff should aid combat certain forms of online harassment and/or cyber-bullying. This contrasts with other anonymous networks in which users are completely anonymous and are free of all liability.
Distort reuses existing online social usernames to identify users, namely Github and Twitter accounts. It uses modern cryptography to provide security, but the Distort app manages the distribution of key content completely -- there is no need to exchange QR codes by mail or digests on pieces of paper. All you need to communicate with Distort is the app itself, and your recipient's Twitter handle.
Distort is an academic research project under active development. We have a working prototype, which we are testing on various messaging technology backends, including Redis Pub/Sub, and IPFS.
- Alpha extension to the google app store.
- Installation and usage instructions.
- Provide messaging statistics and network health.
Contact Distort App [email protected] to get involved with the project. We'd love your help!