Why Privacy Matters in Messaging

Most modern messaging apps put ease of use first, but privacy is often not as important. A lot of services keep track of not just the content of your messages, but also metadata like who you talk to, when you send messages, and how often you talk to them. This information can tell you a lot about a person's life and relationships, even if you don't read the message itself. This means that privacy shouldn't be an afterthought. It must be included in the design of the system from the start. Encrypting Messages Before being sent over the network, messages in my project EchoId are encrypted. The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is used by the system to encrypt the message itself. AES is a symmetric encryption algorithm, which means that the same key is used to encrypt and decrypt data. This is what the basic process looks like: An AES key is made at random. That AES key is used to encrypt the message. RSA encrypts the AES key itself. The encrypted key and message are sent together. Peopl