Signal Alums Reveal 'Encrypted Spaces,' a System for Making Private Collaboration Apps

The new open-source project could serve as the basis for a future of apps with features as complex as Slack, Discord, or Google Docs--but with added protection against surveillance. End-to-end encryption, in which data is encoded so that only users on either "end" of a conversation can decrypt their communications--and not the server that relays that information or any other interloper--has become the standard for modern privacy on the internet. But its very name suggests a kind of simple pipe with two openings. The metaphor, and often the encryption technology that has enabled that model, doesn't fit neatly onto the world of Slack, Discord, Google Docs, and the other multiuser, complex, collaborative software where people now live and work. So one group of cryptographers has built what they describe as the foundation for a new generation of end-to-end encrypted apps, with a new metaphor: Instead of a mere pipe, they want to create "spaces" where users can hold group conversations, host information on a server, collectively make changes to it, invite in new collaborators or kick them out, all while maintaining the same strong encryption protections that prevent the server or network eavesdroppers from accessing their data.