Cwtch

Open Privacy Research Society

About this app

Cwtch (/kʊtʃ/ - a Welsh word roughly translating to “a hug that creates a safe place”) is a decentralized,
privacy-preserving, multi-party messaging protocol that can be used to build metadata resistant applications.

- Decentralized and Open: There is no “Cwtch service” or “Cwtch network”. Participants in Cwtch
can host their own safe spaces, or lend their infrastructure to others seeking a safe space.
The Cwtch protocol is open, and anyone is free to build bots, services and user interfaces and
integrate and interact with Cwtch.

- Privacy Preserving: All communication in Cwtch is end-to-end encrypted and takes place over Tor v3
onion services.

- Metadata Resistant: Cwtch has been designed such that no information is exchanged or available to
anyone without their explicit consent, including on-the-wire messages and protocol metadata.

For more information on how Cwtch works and a guide to metadata resistant communication please
checkout the Cwtch Handbook: https://docs.cwtch.im/

What’s new

- New Features:
- New Encrypted Database Backend - Forked and adopted go-sqlcipher, and migrated the C-based crypto backed to new memory-safe one based on standard, and audited go crypto.
- Memory Tagging Extension Safe - Should ensure safe memory reads and no longer result in Cwtch being killed when MTE in enabled on ARM
- Bug Fixes / Improvements:
- Cwtch is now based on Flutter 3.29
- Fixes to retry cooldown to prevent long-delays when an initial connection attempt fails.