Big Seven Study (2016): 7 open source Crypto-Messengers to be compared (English/Deutsch) (PDF)

Provided with two columns in German & English Language / Zweispaltig in deutscher & englischer Sprache.

BIG SEVEN STUDY about 7 open source Crypto-Messengers for Encryption at the Desktop:

A contribution in the cryptographic-discussion - The two security researchers David Adams (Tokyo) and Ann-Kathrin Maier (Munich), who examined in their BIG SEVEN study seven well-known encryption applications for e-mail and instant messaging out of the open source area, performed then a deeper IT-audit for the acquainted software solution GoldBug.sf.net.

The audit took into account the essential criteria, study fields and methods on the basis of eight international IT-audit manuals and was carried out in 20 dimensions. It identifies Ten Trends in the Crypto-Messaging.

Security researcher David Adams from Tokyo about the published BIG SEVEN CRYPTO-study: "We looked at the seven major open source programs for encrypted online-communication and identified ten trends in the Crypto-Messaging area. One of the important trends is the feature, that the users should be able to define a so-called end-to-end encrypting password by themselves manually".

The software "GoldBug - email client and instant messenger" here was ahead with excellent results and is not only very trustworthy and compliant to international IT-audit manuals and safety standards, GoldBug also scores in comparison and in the evaluation of the single functions in much greater detail than the other comparable open source crypto messenger.

Co-author of the study Ann-Kathrin Maier from Munich confirms: "We have then our Messenger study deepened with a detailed audit of the crypto-program GoldBug, which received excellent results for encrypted email and secure online chat. By our code-reviews we can confirm the trustworthiness of this open source encryption in GoldBug."

Numerous details have been analyzed by various methods, compared and also strategically evaluated by the two authors regarding the current encryption discussions.

The comparatively studied applications include CryptoCat, GoldBug, OTR-XMPP clients such as Pidgin with the OTR-plugin, RetroShare and Signal, Surespot and Tox.