You must register on Seeld to start using it.
It sounds obvious, but it can be scary too! Many applications might request a lot of private information during registration: your email, your real name, your birthday… or access to your phone contacts! That can be a problem…
Thankfully, Seeld requests very little data to register. And it encrypts the few slightly more sensitive bits of data it requires.
When registering, Seeld asks you three things. Yep, three things only!
Once you provide this data and click on the “Register” button, the fun stuff begins.
Bear with me, or skip the next paragraph
You typed in a pseudo, a passphrase and a display name. First thing, KDF (Key Derivation Function) and SRP (Secure Remote Password) artifacts are generated. The KDF generates a derived passphrase from the passphrase you typed. Then the client proceeds to generate your encryption keys and protects them with that derived passphrase. The client also generates a random secret key, to protect your own mailbox. Subsequently, the client encrypts a payload, which contains your display name, your secret key and your encryption keys. Finally, we send the registration to the server, which generates a box address, a device storage key and an exchange key. The server stores all these things on database using the server’s own encryption key. That’s what Seeld knows about you on server.
You didn’t quite grasp everything? That’s okay! I myself must rely on diagrams and notes to remember how everything works.
Here’s what’s important to remember though: before the application sends anything to the server, the browser encrypts everything sensitive that identifies you, using your keys. But those keys are protected with a derived passphrase. We can only retrieve that derived passphrase from your original passphrase. And that original passphrase… never hits the network. The application never sends the original passphrase to the server.
When you register on Seeld, it asks the minimum amount of data to register. In the end it mostly generates the artifacts needed to function. Furthermore, it encrypts all that can be hidden from Seeld’s servers in a way that administrators cannot decrypt it.
Seeld does not want to information about you, or identify you, one way or another. Seeld wants to allow persons to exchange messages as securely and privately as possible.
That means we will not be able to thrive on selling your data to brokers. Too bad for us. But a good thing for you and all of our users!