Zephyr: Hiding Metadata in a Messaging System

TL;DR

Zephyr is an anonymous messaging system designed to protect both message content and metadata, reducing information leakage and enhancing user privacy beyond traditional end-to-end encryption solutions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel system that effectively hides user identities and message metadata, addressing privacy gaps in existing messaging platforms.

Findings

Zephyr successfully conceals user identities and message metadata.

The system reduces information leakage compared to standard messaging apps.

Zephyr enhances privacy without compromising message delivery.

Abstract

Private messaging over internet related services is difficult to implement. Regular end-to-end encryption messaging systems are prone to man in the middle attacks and only hide messages but not the identity of its users. For example, WhatsApp offers a strong privacy guarantee but does not hide much Metadata because it uses end-to-end encryption. Other messaging systems such as Skype can be monitored by government agencies and have backdoors implemented into its software. Zephyr is an anonymous messaging system that protects the privacy of message contents and message metadata. Users that use Zephyr do not reveal who they are talking to or the contents of their messages. The goal of Zephyr is to decrease the amount of information being sent by the user and hide as much metadata as possible.