A few years back, people didn't actually know whether the message was delivered, whether the recipient read the message, message limits, word limits… what not? Bouncing back to today, we have multiple options to customize our messaging platform.
Communication tech has dramatically changed over the past few years. Initially, messaging was primarily used for transactional purposes. Sharing important information from one end to another is a modern form of letter-writing. From Short Message Service to privacy messaging apps, communication platforms have evolved drastically because of multiple reasons like instant delivery, encryption, metadata collection, multimedia support, and add-on voice call and video call features.
The Evolution of Communication: From Plaintext to Privacy-First Systems
Let’s travel back to the medieval ages of kings and queens. In those times, people primarily communicated using letters. Could you believe us if we said privacy was crucial even in the medieval ages? Kings had a secure messaging system like ciphertext.
Yes. One of the earliest mentions of invisible or privacy messaging could be seen in the book by Aeneas Tacticus, ‘On the Defense of Fortified Positions’.
In the first century AD, Pliny the Elder recorded the use of invisible ink, which is made with milk and the tithymalus plant. Messages written using this ink will be visible only upon heating.
Then, slowly the privacy-preserving methods of communication changed from invisible inks to Morse codes as long-distance digital communication evolved. The Enigma machine is also a prime example of encrypted communications during WW2.
This is how much privacy in communications was valued. It provided protection, security, and sovereignty and helped communities build a respectable society.
Early Digital Communication & ARPANET
With the rise of computers, communication entered the modern digital era. The beginning of ARPANET marked the beginning of network-based communication. However, ARPANET was primarily plaintext-based. They weren’t secure or encrypted but completely trust-based.
Normal Text Messages (SMS) - The Starting Point
SMS services were introduced in the early 1990s. Since their launch, the number of messages sent per day has steadily increased. At one point, nearly 350 million messages were sent in the UK alone. But SMS has a word limit. Messages were capped at 160 characters, which makes it difficult for users to send a long message, and every message carried a cost. Yes, messaging was expensive then. This was seen as a major limitation that needed to be addressed.
While SMS stands true to its name, people wanted to convey more for less. Because one can’t restrict their thoughts to just 160 characters, right?
If you’re a millennial or older, you’d know how to manage the word limit on messaging services. Those days, sending a text meant being creative to bypass restrictions.
But the technology didn’t stop there; as it always has been, it was progressing. The advent of smartphones and the internet created new possibilities.
The Web Era: HTTP to HTTPS – When Trust Became Essential
When the internet arrived, communication moved into the web era with the introduction of HTTP. Initially, communication over the internet was completely plaintext. That means all the messages, passwords, and transactions were transmitted openly across networks.
To solve this privacy problem, HTTPS (HTTP Secure) was introduced, which added encryption through SSL/TLS protocols.
Arrival of Instant Messages: A Groundbreaking Technology in Messaging
By 2010, the demand for the internet had grown exponentially; this had paved the way for instant messaging platforms on smartphones. Traditional messaging evolved into mobile-centric apps like WhatsApp and BlackBerry messaging.
It turned the instant messaging industry upside down. Suddenly, people didn’thave to pay for each and every message they sent.
The popularity of instant messaging has increased drastically as users have shifted to instant messaging platforms. This shift can be attributed to two main reasons.
Quick message delivery and free of cost (but it’s not really free, we’ll get to that in a bit). Studies also show that consumers open 98% of SMS and respond to 45% of them, while WhatsApp message open rates hit 99% with a 40% reply rate.
These instant messaging apps run over the internet, so the users can send unlimited-length messages without any limits of the number of messages sent. Users can also send multimedia messages, voice notes, videos, and PDFs without any extra charge.
But is it truly free? There’s got to be a catch, right?
Users often pay with their internet, privacy, and metadata.
Nothing comes for free, right? That too in today’s world that runs on data. Something termed "free" always comes with a hidden price tag.
Messengers like WhatsApp are fully centralized and operate on a centralized server model. The corporations who run such messaging services retain access to all our messages. In 2014, Edward Snowden blew the whistle by releasing numerous documents exposing the NSA's surveillance programs.
This sparked a serious privacy and data protection concern among the users. Because of this issue, WhatsApp rolled out full end-to-end encryption for all users by default from April 2016. End-to-end encryption was one of the significant advantages in messaging technology. It ensures that only the sender and the recipient of a message can read its content. This also made it virtually impossible for the third parties to intercept or access messages.
However, these platforms still operate with phone numbers, IP addresses, and email addresses and are centralized and extract users' metadata.
Privacy Messaging Apps
The privacy concern issues created an urgency for privacy messaging apps. Users started to ask for more, more than just end-to-end encryption. No metadata exposure, no phone numbers or email addresses, or IP address exposure. Complete anonymity is what everyone was demanding.
Privacy messaging apps are the deal-breaker against centralized data pools that constantly monitor every message to build a complete digital profile of users.
Decentralized messengers remove the central authority altogether. BChat’s decentralized messaging system distributes both data and control across many nodes, instead of relying on a single server.
The strong reason for this evolution was the need for a trustless and resilient system. Encrypted messages, when centralized, still introduce single points of failure. But with a decentralized system, no single entity can own your data and misuse it for their vested interests.
Protect Your Privacy
Messaging is no longer about speed, cost, or convenience. It’s about privacy, data protection, control, and identity protection. With a number of industry leaders advocating for privacy and highlighting that privacy is a major gap for mass adoption in crypto, we are entering an era where privacy is no longer considered an option but needs to be integrated as a base design.
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