GhostEnvoy Security: How the Encryption Works

Privacy claims are easy to make and hard to verify. This page explains, in plain terms, exactly how GhostEnvoy protects your messages — the cryptography, what the server can and cannot see, and the honest limits of the current version.

End-to-end encryption, by default

Every message you send is encrypted on your device and can only be decrypted by the person you are talking to. There is no setting to forget and no "less secure" mode. The stack is the same family used by Signal and WhatsApp under the hood:

• A unique key for every single message. Even if one key were ever exposed, it could never unlock your other messages — past or future. This is known as forward secrecy.
• Authenticated encryption. Every message's content and integrity are protected, so any tampering in transit is detected and rejected automatically.
• Proven, industry-standard cryptography — the same kind of end-to-end encryption trusted by the world's most respected secure messengers. No home-grown, unproven crypto.

What the server can and cannot see

GhostEnvoy's relay is deliberately "dumb." It exists only to pass encrypted blobs between devices:

• Zero-knowledge: it only ever receives ciphertext. It has no key and cannot read any message.
• RAM-only, nothing stored: messages are held in memory just until the recipient fetches them, then discarded. There is no message database, no disk persistence of content, and no conversation logs.
• Sealed sender: the sender's identity travels inside the encrypted payload, not as routing metadata — so the server cannot build a "who talks to whom" social graph.

The practical consequence: if the server were seized or breached, there would be nothing meaningful to read — no stored messages, no logs, no plaintext.

No identity required

GhostEnvoy asks for no phone number, no email and no name. When you start, your device generates a random cryptographic identity (a key pair). Your "handle" is derived from your public key. There is no account database linking you to a real person, because there is no account.

Your data on your own device

Message history stored locally is encrypted at rest with a key derived from your passphrase using a strong, deliberately slow method built to resist brute-force attacks. Without your passphrase, the local data is unreadable — so a lost or stolen device does not expose your conversations.

Verify your contact: safety numbers

To be certain you are talking to the right person and not an impostor, each conversation has a safety number — a 60-digit fingerprint derived from both of your public keys (and shown as a QR code). If you and your contact see the same number, your connection has not been tampered with. This is your defense against man-in-the-middle attacks.

Honest limits of the current version

We would rather tell you the truth than oversell:

• One-to-one today. GhostEnvoy currently focuses on direct (1:1) conversations. End-to-end encrypted group chat is on the roadmap.
• Verify important contacts. Sessions are established automatically; for the strongest guarantee, compare the safety number with your contact through a separate channel.
• It runs in your browser. That means no install footprint, but the security of the device and browser still matters — keep them updated.

The design goal is simple and verifiable: the same proven encryption as the best messengers, with no identity attached and nothing stored on any server.