256Chat

Inspiration

In today's world, where cyber threats and data breaches are becoming increasingly common, there is a great need for a secure messaging platform. By creating a web messaging service with a keen ability for encryption and security, we can provide individuals and businesses with a reliable and safe way to communicate online. Imagine being able to connect with others and share sensitive information without the fear of it falling into the wrong hands - that's the power of a truly secure messaging platform!

What it does

This app is a chat room that updates in real-time, where google users are able to send messages to each other. Once signed in through google authentication, messages are sent from each user and stored in Firebase's database. Through this procedure, the messages are encrypted using AES and Firebase's encrypted data traffic, and the chat messages are secured.

How we built it

This app was built using React to build a modern user interface and styled using CSS. The backend was developed with Google Firebase, which provided us with a secure real time database and user authentication services. Our app heavily depends on the usage of React's hooks to manage certain parts of the UI in response to user actions and chat submissions. As well, crypto-js was used to encrypt the chat messages using the Advanced Encryption Standard. All of this combined leads to a successful implementation of end-to-end encryption, securing users' messages properly.

Challenges we ran into

Building a fully functional chat app in 36 hours is a complex task. One of the important challenges we had to overcome was how we would be able to effectively secure our user's data. There were many options, but the end result was using a combination of both Firebase encryption and crypto.js' library implementation of AES.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud to have built a smooth and seamless chat experience for users who wish to use this chatbox site. It is fully functioning, with user authentication and end-to-end encryption while also following the requirements of the project's outline.

What we learned

The importance of user authentication and message encryption in chat applications is a massive undertaking since there are so many underlying potential vulnerabilities to consider in an application like this. It was important to think of all the possibilities, and we learned about the various ways that encryption can occur. The integration of a frontend and backend solution in a team environment was something that was also touched upon during this project.

What's next for 256Chat

256Chat has ambitious goals for the future. Encryption of images/videos sent through our service, private messaging, and porting over the web version of this application into a mobile environment are only some of the plans for this app.

Built With

• crypto-js
• firebase
• javascript
• react
• vite