SEEMless: Secure Messaging with Less Trust

This lecture presents SEEMless, a secure end-to-end encrypted messaging system designed to reduce trust in service providers. The instructor discusses the limitations of traditional messaging applications that rely on public key infrastructure, highlighting the risks associated with trusting service providers to manage public keys. The architecture of SEEMless is introduced, featuring a key directory that allows users to monitor their public keys and verify their integrity. The lecture explains the roles of users, service providers, and auditors in maintaining the key directory, emphasizing the importance of user verification and auditing to prevent malicious activities. The concept of zero-knowledge sets and strong accumulators is explored, detailing how these technologies enhance security and privacy. The instructor compares SEEMless with previous systems like CONIKS, demonstrating its superior scalability and efficiency. The lecture concludes with a discussion on the practical implications of SEEMless in real-world applications, addressing potential industry adoption and the challenges of implementing such a system.