In the digital age, we’re more connected than ever and less free than we’ve ever been. We’ve grown used to it. Used to being watched. Used to being tracked, profiled, manipulated. We hand over our phone numbers, our metadata, our lives... not because we want to, but because we think we have no other choice. Surveillance has become the default. Vulnerability is now expected. Privacy is treated like a luxury. Or worse, a threat. Big tech sells us “secure” apps while mining our behavior. Governments speak of “safety” while expanding their power to listen in. Even the platforms once built to protect us have been co-opted, regulated, or compromised. We celebrate financial freedom while our conversations are still wide open. We trust tools that require phone numbers and cloud backups then act surprised when they leak. We encrypt our money, but not our voices. But privacy is not a side quest. It’s not optional. It’s the foundation. True digital freedom means having control over what you say, who you are, and who gets to listen. It means resisting the normalization of constant surveillance. It means building and using tools that don’t compromise. That’s why we built White Noise. A messenger with no numbers, no emails, no identities forced on you. Just encrypted, censorship-resistant communication on a decentralized network. No ads. No gatekeepers. No backdoors. Because in a world where surveillance is the norm, privacy is resistance. And without privacy, there is no freedom.

With White Noise, you're not a behavioral dataset. No phone numbers. No emails. No surveillance. https://www.whitenoise.chat/download

Metadata builds a profile of you (your habits, your contacts, your movements) without ever reading a word of what you said.

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🚀 White Noise v1.0.4 is out now. Faster, Stronger, Cleaner. Thank you to everyone who tested v0.1.3 and gave us feedback. As the saying goes, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Well, we got punched in the face on the last release.Being able to see the real-world usage and issues that cropped up was invaluable, however. You should see significant improvements across the board. For v1.0.4 we took on a major refactor of the underlying rust crate that does most of the heavy lifting in the app. These "backend" changes required significant updates here in the app to align to the new rust API and includes numerous bug fixes, refactors many internal components for better maintainability, and improves the overall responsiveness of the application. Finally, we did a lot of UI/UX polish along the way. 💪 Stability and Performance - Improved backend: The backend that manages relay connects, event processing, and group operations has been significantly overhauled resulting in a more stable and performant app. - Improved Relay Handling: Relay connection checks have been refactored to provide better error handling and a more stable experience Pull-to-refresh for relays has been removed to simplify the user experience - Performance Fixes: Several performance improvements have been made to reduce lag and improve the overall responsiveness of the app - Bug Fixes: Numerous bugs have been fixed, including issues with account switching, metadata handling, and chat message display - Android Specific Fixes: Addressed a bug with sensitive clipboard handling for private key copying on Android 🔧 Features and Functionality - Group Management: Users can now edit group names and descriptions from the group info page - Message Drafts: Message drafts are now stored securely, so users won't lose their messages if they navigate away from a chat - Improved Navigation: Added back buttons in the authentication flow and improved navigation within the app - Key Package Admin: Added a new screen for managing key packages 📱 UI/UX Enhancements - Improved Chat Experience: The chat auto-scroll behavior has been enhanced to work better with the keyboard, preventing messages from being hidden. The swipe-to-reply widget has also been refactored - Redesigned "Start New Chat" Sheet: The "Start New Chat" sheet has been redesigned for better performance and usability, reducing load times and improving scrolling - Skeleton Loaders: Skeleton loaders have been added to provide a better user experience while content is loading - Emoji Picker and Reactions: The emoji picker and reaction dialogs are now more responsive and visually appealing - Consistent UI Components: Various UI components, such as buttons, icons, and headers, have been unified and made consistent across the application - Custom Bottom Sheet: A new custom bottom sheet with fade-in/out animations has been implemented for a smoother user experience - Visual Polish: Numerous small visual improvements have been made, such as adjusting padding, fixing alignments, and updating icon colors 👤 Contributors The following contributors had code included in this release: - [@erskingardner](https://github.com/erskingardner) - [@josefinalliende](https://github.com/josefinalliende) - [@codeswot](https://github.com/codeswot) - [@quwaysim](https://github.com/Quwaysim) - [@untreu2](https://github.com/untreu2) - [@jgmontoya](https://github.com/jgmontoya) - [@delcin-raj](https://github.com/delcin-raj)

Privacy isn’t a crime fighting strategy. It’s a human right. On Oct 14, EU governments are slated to vote on ‘Chat Control.’ The pitch is child protection. The reality is scanning everyone’s private messages and weakening end-to-end encryption. 679 scientists from 36 countries have signed an open letter explaining why this won’t work and will make us less safe. Their bottom line: - Large-scale CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) detection cannot reach acceptable accuracy. It’s easy to evade and floods systems with false positives. - On-device scanning breaks E2EE by design, creating single points of failure and new targets for abuse. - Expanding “mitigations” (AI filters, age checks) adds complexity and risk, not security. (Find the full letter in the comments) Why mass scanning is the wrong tool: 1. It flips the presumption of innocence. Treating every citizen like a suspect is not “safety”. It’s surveillance. 2. It’s the bedroom-camera problem. Putting spyware on every phone to catch a few criminals is like installing cameras in every bedroom to prevent murders. We all want to stop harm. Violating the privacy of millions of innocents isn’t the way. 3. Function creep is inevitable. Once the scanning pipeline exists, it can be re-tuned for politics, speech, and power. Borders shift, laws change. What’s legal here may be criminal elsewhere. Who draws the line next year? 4. You can’t “re-secure” leaked data. Privacy is protective armor, not a PR setting. Once stripped, it’s gone. 👁️ The cypherpunk lesson: As Eric Hughes wrote, “Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age.” Cypherpunks didn’t ask for permission. they wrote code so ordinary people could have the same defensive tech that institutions take for granted. That’s not a niche hobby. It’s democratic hygiene. 🫶 Better ways to protect children (and everyone) : Real protection doesn’t require blanket surveillance. It needs education, prevention, faster takedowns, resourced investigators (with warrants and due process), targeted operations (against offenders, not dragnet scans of the innocent). These are exactly the pathways experts (and the UN) recommend: effective, proportionate, and rights-preserving. 💪 Build the free, private stack: We already have tools that defend both safety and liberty without backdoors: - Bitcoin for open, borderless payments. - Nostr to own your identity and content. - White Noise for truly private messaging: no phone numbers, no emails, end-to-end encryption with forward secrecy and post-compromise security. This isn’t about ‘nothing to hide.’ It’s about the power to live, speak, organize, report, and dissent without pre-approval. A controlled population is not a free population. And a free society is the best long-term defense against abuse and corruption alike.