Initial Alpha of echoexx Released to Mailing List Invitees

Update: On 24th May 2024, Echoexx rebranded to Phoenixx.

On the evening of January 29th 2024, BitFashioned pushed out the first release of echoexx to those on their website mailing list.

As a decentralised web app, echoexx provides completely private messaging using XX Network’s mixnet cMixx, whilst connected to a web3 identity. In this early release, that element is an integration with Ethereum and (optionally) their ENS service.

I spent some time playing with it and reaching out to a few folks who provided their ETH address/name to connect with and also spoke to Bernie Cardoso of BitFashioned to clarify some key points.

Privacy is the fundamental feature of this web-based messenger. All chats and user-lookups are end-to-end encrypted and completely stripped of metadata to remove detection by any network-level adversary (like your ISP or government) for who is talking to/looking up who and when, using XX Network’s unique and decentralised mix network cMixx. After the XX Messenger, echoexx is one of the only messenger applications that removes the metadata honeypot of information that has been proven to be used to track and target individual users of other platforms.

The user discovery and chats worked flawlessly for me in this initial release, with minimal latency in conversations. A slick look and feel is also present with the grey/gold components adding a touch of class.

Currently, the ENS (Ethereum Name Service) integration is not using cMixx, according to Bernie, so certain interactions with it are talking directly to the ETH network as I understand it. In future releases, there will be a Proxxy integration to run all of those over cMixx also.

The login system allows you to use whichever wallet you’re comfortable with, but currently the only supported network is ETH – this will grow as time goes on.

BitFashioned also updated their FAQs and the roadmap for echoexx, which shows that another (the first official V1) alpha release will be made next month, with more features such as simple payments and multi-device support. Further releases are planned throughout the year.

Early adopters are encouraged to provide feedback on any issues encountered via the appropriate link in the dApp.

Below is a gallery of screenshots whilst using the alpha, so you can get a feel for the burgeoning dApp. There are blocks of grey I’ve placed on some images obscuring addresses/ENS names for privacy.

If you’re interested in some of the technical details, Bernie’s explanation to some of the key underlying mechanics of echoexx were laid out in a conversation:

Echoexx uses wallet connect so that users can login with any wallet they’re comfortable with. For example, I tested logging in using Nova wallet from my phone, with echoexx on desktop, and it works fine.

For now there are no transactions within the app, the login is just a wallet signature, not a transaction. The ENS integration reads from the Ethereum chain directly, no proxxy integration yet.

What goes through cMixx are all the chats + the initial association of your address -> pubkey and any user lookups you do. This is using a bot… which uses single use requests, meaning the bot can’t correlate any of your lookups: there’s no metadata because of cMixx, but if you would always request from the bot using the same receiving id, it could be possible to keep a record of which addresses each id looked up. Using single use requests means that a newly generated receiving id is created for each request.

For identity management, we added a text on the login page that tries to explain things in an easy and short way. Right now there’s no import export of identity, neither backup. These are features that we’ll add in the next versions.

So now, everything is stored in your browser local storage. Everything is encrypted, except for a salt which is included to create the message that you sign to login. The signature that results is unique from your wallet, so it’s used to decrypt your identity from local storage. From then on, you’re good to go and using the xxDK DM client.

I look forward to testing and commenting on the forthcoming versions as they are released.