Home / Encrypted messages
Encrypted messages on Rawly: what is protected, and what is not.
Direct messages and group chats on Rawly are end-to-end encrypted. They are encrypted on your phone and decrypted only on the phones of the people you write to. Here is how it works, what our server can and cannot see, and where the protection stops.
What is end-to-end encrypted
| End-to-end encrypted | Forward secrecy | |
|---|---|---|
| Direct messages | Yes | Yes |
| Photos and voice notes in a chat | Yes | Yes |
| Group chats | Yes, a copy for each member | Yes |
| Task proof photos (chat tasks) | Yes | Not yet |
| Club messages, topics and photos | No. Stored encrypted on our servers | No |
| Posts, challenge entries and comments | No. They are meant to be seen | No |
How it works
Keys stay on your phone.
Each phone makes its own keys. The private keys never leave it.
A session starts with X3DH.
The first message sets up a session with X3DH key agreement: your phone combines its keys with the other person's published keys (X25519, with a prekey signed with Ed25519).
Every message moves the Double Ratchet.
Each message gets a new key, derived with HKDF and HMAC-SHA256, and is encrypted with AES-256-GCM. A key stolen today does not open yesterday's messages (forward secrecy), and the session heals after a compromise.
Photos and voice notes get their own key.
Each one is encrypted with a random key, and that key travels inside the encrypted message.
Groups are a copy per member.
In a group, your phone encrypts each message once for every member, over your session with each of them. There is no shared group key.
History stays on your phone.
Your chat history is kept on your phone, encrypted with a key held in the phone's keychain.
What our server sees
- Ciphertext. It stores and passes on messages it cannot decrypt.
- Who wrote to whom, and when. The server needs that to deliver messages.
- Public keys. Other phones use them to start a session with you.
- Notifications without content. A push says who wrote and whether it is a message, a photo or a voice note, never what it says.
Where the protection stops
- Club threads are not end-to-end encrypted. They are stored encrypted on our servers, with a key kept outside the database and its backups. Members read them, and moderators can see what is reported.
- Task proof photos have no forward secrecy yet. They are end-to-end encrypted with a fixed key pair rather than through the ratchet.
- Older app versions. If the other person's app is too old to have ratchet keys, messages fall back to Rawly's earlier end-to-end scheme, which has no forward secrecy.
- No safety number yet. The app has no screen to compare keys in person, so you rely on Rawly's server to hand out the right public keys.
- Reports are readable. If you report a chat, the messages you choose are sent to our moderators in readable form. Nothing else leaves your phone.
- Phones are phones. Encryption protects messages on the way and on our server, not on an unlocked phone. The app blocks screenshots, but anyone can photograph a screen.
Rawly built its messaging on the published X3DH and Double Ratchet specifications. Rawly is not affiliated with Signal. More in the privacy policy and on safety on Rawly.
Questions
Are Rawly messages end-to-end encrypted?
Yes. Direct messages and group chats are end-to-end encrypted, including photos and voice notes. Club threads are not: they are stored encrypted on our servers.
Does Rawly use the Signal Protocol?
Rawly's messaging is built on X3DH and the Double Ratchet, the algorithms Signal published for the Signal Protocol. Rawly wrote its own implementation and is not affiliated with Signal.
Can Rawly read my messages?
Not your direct messages or group chats: our server only gets ciphertext. Club threads are encrypted with our key, so they are not private from Rawly, and messages you attach to a report are sent to our moderators in readable form.
Does Rawly have disappearing messages?
Yes. The person reading can switch on Burn, and a message disappears 10 seconds after it is read.
Are group chats encrypted?
Yes. Your phone encrypts each group message once for every member, over your end-to-end session with each of them.
Write freely. Shoot live.
Free on iOS and Android. For people 18 and over.