A new startup called Germ is bringing end-to-end encrypted messaging to the Bluesky social network, allowing its users to have a more secure option for chats than Bluesky’s existing DMs. After over two years of development, the service is launching its encrypted DMs for Bluesky into beta this week, with plans to gradually onboard new testers ahead of a public launch.
In time, the technology that Germ is building, much of which is open sourced, could allow Bluesky to introduce encrypted messaging into its own app.
Germ was designed to offer an alternative to existing end-to-end encrypted platforms that dominate globally, like iMessage, Signal, and WhatsApp. Germ takes advantage of newer technologies, like Messaging Layer Security (MLS), a new standard approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and the AT Protocol (or ATProto), which powers Bluesky.
Image Credits:Germ Image Credits:Germ
However, instead of requiring a user’s phone number as some messaging apps do, Germ integrates with ATProto. This allows Germ users to securely chat with friends from Bluesky and the wider open social web, including apps like Flashes and Skylight, but with added controls over the user experience.
For instance, you can choose to accept DMs from people you follow on Bluesky, or you could configure it so that only you can initiate chats with other people. Plus, when you block a user in Germ, you can choose to block them only in Germ or block them across Bluesky and other ATProto-powered apps as well.
The concept for Germ comes from co-founders Tessa Brown (CEO), a communications scholar who previously taught at Stanford, and Mark Xue, who worked as a privacy engineer at Apple on technologies like FaceTime and iMessage.
Brown’s studies led her to realize that access to private communications was fundamental to the health of social networks.
Image Credits:Germ
“We know that, psychologically, you can’t build a good relationship with people if you feel like you’re being stared at and manipulated all the time. And that’s really what social media is today,” Brown tells TechCrunch. “So I came out of that work with a really strong conviction around end-to-end encrypted messaging as kind of the centerpiece of what I thought was the future of social media and the future of communication,” she adds.
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