mirror of https://github.com/acid-info/vac.dev.git
38 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
38 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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layout: page
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permalink: /faq/
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title: FAQ
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---
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## Are there messaging protocols out there that you feel live up to your security and privacy Standards? Where does Signal fall in?
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There are a lot of protocols out there and new ones come up every day, in terms of fitting our requirements on
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scalability, decentralization, security and privacy we've yet to find one that works just as is, which is why we are
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developing our own.
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Signal is using a centralized server, but they provide many protocols. [Status](https://status.im) for example used a modified version of
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Signal's Double Ratchet and X3DH key exchange for encryption and forward secrecy in their app.
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So kudos to them for that work!
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You can find this in status client specification [here](https://status-im.github.io/specs/status-secure-transport-spec).
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## Are there any benefits to building messaging protocols for Ethereum? Is Waku a long term solution?
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Waku is completely separate from Ethereum, the only overlap is that a lot of components such as P2P protocols are the
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same. Future incentivization schemes are likely to use Ethereum in terms of deposits and settlement, but that's it.
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Waku is more scalable than Whisper, but it still has a lot of issues. We aim to address these in an incremental manner
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until it works as a long term solution and stands the test of time.
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## What are the key privacy tradeoffs between Waku and Whisper?
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First off, the privacy guarantees provided by Whisper are mostly theoretical at this stage. They've not received a lot
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of scrutiny from academic researchers and so on.
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There are a few trade-offs that allow Waku to be more scalable and suitable for resource restricted devices than Whisper.
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It is worth noting that all of these are [optional](https://specs.vac.dev/specs/waku/waku.html#status), and a Waku client can choose to get all the privacy benefits by turning these options off:
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1. Light client means mobile nodes don't relay messages that aren't their own.
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2. Mailserver for offline messaging means a mailserver knows which messages you are requesting and what your IP is.
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3. Fetching messages by topic instead of bloom filter means there's less (none) false positives, which reveal that you care about certain topics more.
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