The Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS)

The Center for Education and Research in
Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS)
Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security

Rolf Oppliger

Students: Spring 2025, unless noted otherwise, sessions will be virtual on Zoom.

E2EE Messaging: State of the Art and Future Challenges

Sep 17, 2025

Abstract

End-to-end encrypted (E2EE) messaging on the Internet allows encrypted messages to be sent from one sender to one or multiple recipients in a way that cannot be decrypted by anybody else - arguably not even the messaging service provider itself. The protocol of choice is Signal that invokes and puts in place several cryptographic primitives in new and ingenious ways. Besides the messenger of the same name, the Signal protocol is also used by WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Wire, and many more. As such, it marks the gold standard and state of the art when it comes to E2EE messaging on the Internet.To make it scalable and useful for large groups, the IETF has also standardized a complementary protocol named messaging layer security (MLS). In this talk, we outline the history of development and mode of operation of both the Signal and MLS protocols, and we elaborate on the next challenges for the future.

About the Speaker

<span>Rolf Oppliger
Rolf Oppliger studied computer science, mathematics, and economics at the University of Bern, Switzerland, where he received M.Sc. (1991) and Ph.D. (1993) degrees in computer science. In 1994-95, he was a post-doctoral researcher at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) of UC Berkeley, USA. In 1999, he received the venia legendi for computer science from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, where he was appointed adjunct professor in 2007. The focus of his professional activities is on technical information security and privacy. In these areas, he has published 18 books and many scientific articles and papers, regularly participates at conferences and workshops, served on the editorial boards of some leading magazines and journals, and has been the editor of the Artech House information security and privacy book series since its beginning (in the year 2000). He's the founder and owner of eSECURITY Technologies Rolf Oppliger, works for the Swiss National Cyber Security Centre NCSC, and teaches at the University of Zurich. He was a senior member of the ACM and the IEEE, as well as a member of the IEEE Computer Society and the IACR. He also served as vice-chair of the IFIP TC 11 working group on network security.


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