Encryption built to last
What it is
Messages travelling from phone to phone on the ERERE Network and the receipts proving what you authorised use two protections together: today's, and a second one designed to resist next-generation computers (the public standards FIPS 203 and FIPS 204). Opening a message or forging a receipt would require breaking both.
Why it exists
What you entrust to ERERE, including memories to leave to your heirs, is meant to last for decades. A message encrypted today can be stored by someone hoping to open it years from now with more powerful machines. The protection has to last as long as what it protects.
How it works for you
- Network messages: your phone already has the new key, even if ERERE was installed earlier. The first message to a friend carries it; from their reply on, the conversation stays in the double form. The personal code you exchange (QR) does not change. Relays still read nothing.
- With the ERERE server: requests travelling over the Network to ERERE use the double form too.
- Receipts: consent, Pact, Consulta, parental consent and non-betrayal receipts carry two signatures. Receipts already issued remain valid.
- Forward secrecy (11/11): every four days your phone changes its receiving key and really deletes the old ones: if your phone were ever stolen, messages from many days earlier could no longer be opened. The app shows "forward secrecy" next to contacts that use it.
- Slow links and emergencies: SOS, messages that can only travel over the pocket stone and satellite messages automatically use the lighter, current form so they arrive sooner.
What you give
Nothing: a message in the double form weighs about 1.4 KB more (the first one to each friend about 2 KB more, because it carries the key), a receipt about 4 KB more.
What you get
Messages and receipts that stay protected even if one of the two protections were broken in the future.
What you choose
Nothing to set: the double form switches on by itself. For each contact the app shows whether the conversation is already in the double form.
Honest limits
Forward secrecy works in four-day periods, not per message; the first message to a new contact and requests to the server still use the fixed key; a message in transit for more than twelve days can no longer be opened. The rotating-key protocol has no independent review yet. The second protection uses an open library that does not yet have a published external review. The first message to a friend leaves in today's form: the double form applies from their reply on. SOS, stone and satellite use today's form by design. No encryption protects a phone that is already compromised.
Where it stands
In the system and proven by automated tests: new key on every phone (including existing installs), automatic exchange between two phones, phone ↔ server in the double form, automatic light form, double signature on every receipt verifiable by third parties, reading of existing envelopes and receipts. Field trial: real phones. To do: independent verification.