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DARPA Wants To Make a Better, More Secure Version of WhatsApp (trustedreviews.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the free-for-all dept.

The Defense and Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) appears to be in the process of developing its own ultra secure communication platform. The program is called "Resilient Anonymous Communication for Everyone," or RACE, and it will be similar to WhatsApp in that it will be for everyone to use. Trusted Reviews reports: The objectives of the program are to create a distributed messaging system that can do three things: Exist completely within a network; Provide confidentiality, integrity and availability of messaging; and Preserve privacy to any participant in the system.

DARPA seem to be putting security front and center, and the description of the project claims that "compromised system data and associated networked communications should not be helpful for comprising any additional parts of the system," meaning that DARPA are keen that one breach shouldn't also give them a leg up on access to other parts of the system. So, will we soon be using a U.S government branded DARPA? Probably not, but the chances are that RACE will go some way to creating a messaging app that's resilient to attacks, with the protocol and security they find no doubt dripping through to consumer tech and features in the coming years.

14 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Are you seriously suggesting I should trust a communications app made by the government?

    1. Re:No thanks by BringsApples · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So many people are probably thinking this same thing right now...

      ...as they post the story to facebook, twitter and whatsapp.

      --
      Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
    2. Re: No thanks by illiac_1962 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You mean like the internet? The one we are using right now to bitch about things anonymously and do our banking?

    3. Re:No thanks by Oceanplexian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      On one hand, no, but on another, isn't that the point of the government? They exist to serve the people. Assuming the code is open source, audited, and done in a way that's completely open and transparent? yeah I think I would trust it.

  2. one head says this, another head says that by sanf780 · · Score: 5, Funny

    FBI tells us that encryption is for terrorists, DARPA tells us that encryption is for everyone. Are we all terrorists now?

    1. Re:one head says this, another head says that by Pseudonym · · Score: 2

      This is how you can be certain that there's no grand government conspiracy. It's left hand doesn't know who it's right hand is doing.

      Conspiracy theories appeal to humans because we are pattern-seeking machines that find connections in randomness. But few stop to ask why there is randomness.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  3. Signal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You mean Signal?

  4. First stupid question: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Will users be referred to as "racists"?

  5. A name for that project by zm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Signal.

    --
    Sig ?
    1. Re:A name for that project by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2

      ItsAtrap.

    2. Re: A name for that project by bursch-X · · Score: 2

      Or just Akbar


      But not as in "Allah hu" ;-)

      --
      There are two rules for success:
      1. Never tell everything you know.
  6. Re: Darpa? More like, Dorka. by illiac_1962 · · Score: 2

    Is signal distributed, existing solely within the network? Cause I see the word "server" used a lot. You guys can't even read the fucking summary any more.

  7. Re:Could this be a wonderful change? by Gavagai80 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    DARPA developed the Onion routing the Tor project uses, too -- way back in the 1990s. The US military is always keen to enable private communications between dissidents and demonstrators in disliked nations, and also for Americans organizing activities in said nations. That such tools also happen to be able to protect Americans from the US government is not sufficient reason to kill the projects, apparently. We can only hope the ability of foreign hackers to acquire decryption keys will prevent their use.

    --
    This space intentionally left blank
  8. Re:DARPA wants encryption for SPYS by skovnymfe · · Score: 2

    Well it needs to be decryptable too. By the US military only.