Last week, Elon Musk announced that the latest version of the X (formerly Twitter) app is getting a new Direct Messaging feature called XChat. The new functionality, which Musk says is built using a “whole new architecture” brings tons of new features like vanishing messages, ability to share files, audio and video calling and encryption.
XChat comes a few days after the Elon Musk owned social media platform, previously known as Twitter, temporarily paused message encryption to make “some improvements”. And while Musk did say that XChat is “built on Rust with (Bitcoin style) encryption.” On its support page, X said that when users enter a Chat for the first time, it creates a “private-public key pair” that is unique to each user, with the private key stored on X servers when they enter a PIN.
XChat’s method of storing chats may sound secure, but according to crypto news site Coindesk, experts say that while cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin do have digital signing capabilities, the blockchain itself has no encryption and that there is no such thing as “Bitcoin style encryption.”
This means that unlike messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal, which make messages completely unreadable by anyone other than the receiver and sender, XChat’s security mechanism may not be as secure.
The X help page does mention that messages on the platform are stored in an encrypted format, and can only be “read by the user”. This may sound like End-to-End encryption, but the company does say that it currently does not “offer protections against man-in-the-middle attacks,” which means if someone at X was to compromise an encrypted message, no one would know.
“XChat looks to be just another centralized platform where users have zero control over their data,” said Matthew Hodsgon, the CEO of messaging platform Element, which is used by the United Nations, US military and NATO said in a statement to The Register. Currently, there are concerns about XChat’s encryption methods, but maybe we will get more details when X releases its whitepaper “later this year.”
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