Warp2: A Method of Email and Messaging with Encrypted Addressing and Headers

TL;DR

Warp2 introduces a communication method that encrypts email headers alongside message content, significantly enhancing privacy by preventing metadata analysis and network modeling of participants.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach to encrypt email headers, addressing a key privacy vulnerability in existing secure messaging systems.

Findings

Prototype implementation demonstrates header encryption effectiveness.

Encryption of headers hinders network analysis of communication patterns.

Enhances privacy for users in oppressive environments.

Abstract

Secure communications are playing increasing roles in society, particularly in finance, journalism, and military projects. Current methods of securing e-mail and similar messaging methods rely on encryption of the message body, but the header with addressing information remains plaintext. This allows third party eavesdroppers to collect and analyse the header metadata and construct a network model of the participants in conversations (who, where, when, subject). In this article, we describe a method of communication where the header is also encrypted, hindering the assembly of the communication network models, which is verified with a working prototype application. This provides a useful tool to journalists and proponents of free speech in oppressed countries, protecting both the messages and their sources.