Warp2: A Method of Email and Messaging with Encrypted Addressing and Headers
This provides a useful tool for journalists and free speech advocates in oppressed countries by protecting both messages and sources, addressing a specific security gap in current encrypted communication methods.
The paper tackles the problem of metadata exposure in secure communications by encrypting email and messaging headers, which prevents third parties from constructing network models of participants; a working prototype verifies the method's effectiveness.
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.