{"id":48692,"date":"2025-07-30T23:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T23:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/48692\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T23:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T23:30:07","slug":"germ-brings-end-to-end-encrypted-messages-to-bluesky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/48692\/","title":{"rendered":"Germ brings end-to-end encrypted messages to Bluesky"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new startup called Germ<\/a> is bringing end-to-end encrypted messaging to the Bluesky social network, allowing its users to have a more secure option for chats than Bluesky\u2019s existing DMs<\/a>. After over two years of development, the service is launching<\/a> its encrypted DMs for Bluesky into beta this week, with plans to gradually onboard new testers ahead of a public launch.<\/p>\n

In time, the technology that Germ is building<\/a>, much of which is open sourced, could allow Bluesky to introduce encrypted messaging into its own app.<\/p>\n

Germ was designed to offer an alternative to existing end-to-end encrypted platforms that dominate globally, like iMessage, Signal, and WhatsApp. Germ takes advantage of newer technologies, like Messaging Layer Security (MLS), a new standard approved by the\u00a0Internet Engineering Task Force<\/a>\u00a0(IETF), and the AT Protocol<\/a> (or ATProto), which powers Bluesky.<\/p>\n

\"aImage Credits:Germ<\/p>\n

\"aImage Credits:Germ<\/p>\n

However, instead of requiring a user\u2019s phone number as some messaging apps do, Germ integrates with ATProto. This allows Germ users to securely chat with friends from Bluesky and the wider open social web, including apps like Flashes<\/a> and Skylight<\/a>, but with added controls over the user experience.<\/p>\n

For instance, you can choose to accept DMs from people you follow on Bluesky, or you could configure it so that only you can initiate chats with other people. Plus, when you block a user in Germ, you can choose to block them only in Germ or block them across Bluesky and other ATProto-powered apps as well.<\/p>\n

The concept for Germ comes from co-founders Tessa Brown<\/a> (CEO), a communications scholar who previously taught at Stanford, and Mark Xue<\/a>, who worked as a privacy engineer at Apple on technologies like FaceTime and iMessage.<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s studies led her to realize that access to private communications was fundamental to the health of social networks.<\/p>\n

\"aImage Credits:Germ<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that, psychologically, you can\u2019t build a good relationship with people if you feel like you\u2019re being stared at and manipulated all the time. And that\u2019s really what social media is today,\u201d Brown tells TechCrunch. \u201cSo I came out of that work with a really strong conviction around end-to-end encrypted messaging as kind of the centerpiece of what I thought was the future of social media and the future of communication,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

Xue, meanwhile, came out of Apple believing that the use of phone numbers and telephony is a dated technology to serve as the basis for secure communications and wanted to build something new.<\/p>\n

Today, Germ\u2019s service works by way of a \u201cmagic link,\u201d which is generated for you and pasted into your Bluesky bio. When another Bluesky user on iOS clicks this link, they can immediately chat with you without downloading a new app from the App Store. To make this possible, Germ takes advantage of underutilized Apple technology called App Clips, which allow users to run a portion of an app\u2019s code on their device without installing the full app.<\/p>\n

Today, App Clips are used for miscellaneous one-off-type transactions, like paying for parking via a QR code. But in Germ\u2019s case, they allow for quick chats.<\/p>\n

While the user experience is simple enough, the technology behind it is not. The link itself is actually a cryptographic key that authenticates the user\u2019s ATProto identity to confirm that the user is the person associated with that Bluesky handle.<\/p>\n

From the Germ App Clip, you can choose to install the Germ iOS app<\/a>, which offers more controls, access to your friends list, and now Bluesky pairing.<\/p>\n

The pairing feature was somewhat finicky in our tests, but we are running the iOS 26 developer beta, which may be causing complications. (To work around the issue, we started the chat from the App Clip first, before trying to authenticate from the installed app.)<\/p>\n

\"aTessa Brown, Germ Network CEO.Image Credits:Germ Network Instagram (opens in a new window)<\/a><\/p>\n

Brown tells TechCrunch that she\u2019s excited about building within the Bluesky community, given the app\u2019s growing cultural impact, which has attracted big names in U.S. politics, like Barack Obama<\/a>, Hillary Clinton<\/a>, and other\u00a0representatives, senators, and governors<\/a>, to join.<\/p>\n

Given that Germ is ahead of the Bluesky team in building encrypted messaging technology, Brown is hopeful that Germ\u2019s protocol could be more broadly adopted by Bluesky and others in the future.<\/p>\n

While currently free to use, the Germ app may later introduce a premium subscription upgrade that offers more advanced services, including private AI services, personalization tools, and more.<\/p>\n

The four-person startup has raised pre-seed funding from angel investors, including a co-author of MLS and other trust and safety experts. Institutional investors include K5 Global and Mozilla Ventures. The company hopes to raise additional funds for an Android version in the future. <\/p>\n