Secure Messaging with in-app user defined schemes

Abstract

Cryptography has been the culmination of human trials and mistrials in an attempt to keep information safe from unintended access. We have learned from our mistakes in the past, and today with the help of both academician and software developers, we have robust cryptographic technologies. Cryptography however, is a race between increasing processing power of modern machines and the complexity of cryptographic systems. With quantum computing on the horizon, our present cryptographic systems seem to fall behind in this race. There is a need to catalyze research in the field. Here, an application is proposed, which empowers users to write their own cryptographic schemes. It hopes to create a platform where people can share their cryptographic schemes and have an application that can help them share information securely. The author hopes, that an application which sources cryptographic schemes from users, would help catalyze research in the field. An application where the security implementation is dependent on the whim of the user could prove a hard target for attack. The thesis starts with a preliminary study of the Android platform. The thesis then analyzes im- plementations of a few secure messaging applications and then delves into details of NFC. Using the background information accumulated during the course of this study, the authors attempt to formulate a sound implementation of a messaging application. The thesis is also accompanied with a proof-of-concept Android application that checks the viability of concepts discussed herein