The Tor Project released on Thursday the first public beta of its Tor Messenger chat app that it recommends for people who are concerned with digital security.
Artechnica reports that the app was made specifically to protect the location and routing data of the user and chat information while in transit. It does this using the open source Off-The-Record (OTR) protocol.
There are two noticeable characteristics of the app which is considered similar to Pidgin or Adium. Messages could only be sent to those who also use the OTR protocol, although that feature could be disabled. It cannot log chats which people who are privacy-minded would appreciate.
Tor Messenger could be downloaded on a platform of the user's choice. It supports various chat protocols such as Google's GChat, Yahoo, Facebook and any XMPP account. But it excludes AOL Instant Messenger. Google GChat users need to go through a two-factor authentication.
To avoid talking to someone who could be an impersonator, Tor Messenger uses a key verification which could be done manually or using the new "share secret" option involving the verification of an OTR fingerprint. It involves having a commonly understood word or phrase that is sent to the contact using secure and private methods such as Twitter DM, Signal/TextSecure, iMesssage, or PGP
It should be something that the user and the contact would easily remember. The contact is prompted to verify the fingerprint by using the share secret.
The Tor Project team promises to continue fixing bugs that may be uncovered along the way and to come up with updates, if needed. The team askes users of the beta version to provide it feedback, make requests and file bugs.
Open Rights Group Executive Director Jim Killock says, "At the end of the day, some people really do need privacy and security so this would be important to them," quotes TechTimes.