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Glossary

Private messaging glossary

Plain-English definitions of the encryption and privacy terms behind PrivaMesh - no cryptography degree required.

Stealth address

A stealth address is a fresh, one-time address generated for a single message so that only the intended recipient can recognize it - hiding who is talking to whom.

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Metadata (in messaging)

Metadata is the information around a message - who sent it, to whom, when, how often, and from where - as opposed to the message content itself.

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Forward secrecy

Forward secrecy means that if an attacker steals a key today, they still cannot decrypt your past messages, because those messages used keys that have already been deleted.

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Double Ratchet

The Double Ratchet is an algorithm that derives a new encryption key for every message, giving conversations forward secrecy and post-compromise security.

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BIP-39 seed phrase

A BIP-39 seed phrase is a list of words that encodes a private key - a self-custodial account you control, with no phone number or email involved.

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End-to-end encryption (E2EE)

End-to-end encryption means only the sender and recipient can read a message; everything in between - including any server - sees only ciphertext.

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Cover traffic

Cover traffic is decoy messages mixed in with real ones so that an observer cannot tell when you are actually communicating.

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Serverless messenger

A serverless messenger routes messages without any central server - so there is no operator that can be breached, subpoenaed, or forced to log your activity.

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