Bitmessage is a

decentralized Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those related to planning and decision-making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group and gi ...

, encrypted,

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network, forming a peer-to-peer network of Node ...

, trustless

communications protocol A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics (computer science), sem ...

that can be used by one person to send encrypted messages to another person, or to multiple subscribers. Bitmessage was conceived by software developer Jonathan Warren, who based its design on the decentralized

digital currency Digital currency (digital money, electronic money or electronic currency) is any currency, money, or money-like asset that is primarily managed, stored or exchanged on digital computer systems, especially over the internet. Types of digital cu ...

Bitcoin Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; Currency symbol, sign: ₿) is the first Decentralized application, decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 when an unknown entity published a white paper under ...

. The software was released in November 2012 under the

MIT license The MIT License is a permissive software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts very few restrictions on reuse and therefore has high license compatibility. Unl ...

. Bitmessage gained a reputation for being out of reach of warrantless

wiretapping Wiretapping, also known as wire tapping or telephone tapping, is the monitoring of telephone and Internet-based conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitoring connecti ...

conducted by the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and proces ...

(NSA), due to the decentralized nature of the protocol, and its encryption being difficult to crack. This prevents the accidental eavesdropping. As a result, downloads of the Bitmessage program increased fivefold during June 2013, after news broke of classified email surveillance activities conducted by the NSA. It achieves anonymity and privacy by relying on the

blockchain The blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of Record (computer science), records (''blocks'') that are securely linked together via Cryptographic hash function, cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of th ...

flooding propagation mechanism and asymmetric encryption algorithm. Bitmessage has also been mentioned as an experimental alternative to email by ''

Popular Science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...

'' and CNET. Some

ransomware Ransomware is a type of malware that Encryption, encrypts the victim's personal data until a ransom is paid. Difficult-to-trace Digital currency, digital currencies such as paysafecard or Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency, cryptocurrencies are com ...

programs instruct affected users to use Bitmessage to communicate with the attackers. PyBitmessage version 0.6.2 (March 1, 2017) had a remote code execution vulnerability. It was fixed in version 0.6.3 (February 13, 2018).

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* * {{Cryptographic software Cryptographic software Free software programmed in Python Email authentication Internet privacy software Open standards Peer-to-peer software Software using the MIT license Tor onion services

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