TIMB (Tor Instant Messaging Bundle) Promises Encrypted IM Sessions

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Following the high profile acquisition of WhatsApp, concerns have been raised on privacy. The mobile messaging platform authenticates its users through their phone numbers. It has been a main attraction due to its guarantee that it can protect user information. This however presents a huge risk to user data, according German data privacy activists – ULD, both WhatsApp and Facebook fail to satisfy the European data protection standards.
onion
The Onion Router (TOR) has been a preferred channel for those who want to conceal their communication over the internet. Soon, the team behind Tor will introduce a solution to rid the problem of data privacy over IM. TIMB (Tor Instant Messaging Bundle) will route user chat messages over a huge network of randomly selected relays.

TIMB will encrypt user messages multiple times including destination IP, making it sufficiently difficult to trace the original source. Only partial information can be obtained on how the communication is routed, this foils any tracking attempts which rely on the knowledge of source and destination.