Hacktivist group cDc creates a free framework to make apps more secure

Hacktivist group Cult of the Dead Cow releases the Veilid framework. This is an open source tool that allows developers to build secure and privacy-friendly apps. The group says it strives for an ‘accessible internet with fewer advertisements and more privacy’.

Developers can the open source framework Veilid use to build apps that allow users to message or share files. The framework can also be used for complete social networks. Cult of the Dead Cow mentioned At the Def Con hacker conference in Las Vegas, secure a mix between the anonymous web browser Tor and the peer-to-peer network IPFS. Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS and web apps are supported by the framework.

Apps can send fully encrypted content to each other via Veilid’s protocol. It is a kind of decentralized peer-to-peer network, which means that the network should become faster as there are more users. Veilid uses VLD0 cryptography. Becoming further XChaCha20-Poly1305 used for encryption, Ed25519 for authentication and signing of public private keys, x25519 for key exchange, Blake3 for cryptographic hashing and Argon2 to generate the password hash.

Developers are allowed to charge money for apps and to show ads, but showing personalized ads – which generally generate more revenue than non-personalized ads – is not possible. In return for The Washington Post cDc previously said that the group wants to ‘give people the opportunity to withdraw from the data economy’.

Cult of the Dead Cow was founded in 1984, making it one of the first hacker groups. Well-known members of cDc are Beto O’Rourke, Peiter Zatko and Christien Rioux. The group is seen as one of the pioneers of hacktivism, a portmanteau of ‘hacking’ and ‘activism’. The group is also known for the release of BackOrifice in 1998, an open source tool that could be used to hack into Windows devices.