The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a specification for the encryption of electronic data. It is based on the Rijndael cipher[5] developed by two Belgian cryptographers, Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen. AES has been adopted by the U.S. government and is now used worldwide. It superseded the Data Encryption Standard (DES) in 2001. Bruteforcing 256-bit keys is simply beyond the capability of classical computing, and potentially still impossible even after the advent of efficient quantum computers. To get how long it takes, you divide half the number of total keys by the number of keys you try per-year, which gives you about 10^22 years, which is pretty much forever since the universe is only about 10^10 years old. In GoldBug the AES key is deployed by the MELODICA function or set manually with the Gemini and Email Passphrase-Option.
http://embeddedsw.net/Cipher_Reference_Home.html#AES

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In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is a step-by-step procedure for calculations.
In computer systems, an algorithm is basically an instance of logic to produce output from given input (perhaps null).
Modern cryptography is heavily based on mathematical theory and computer science practice; cryptographic algorithms are designed around computational hardness assumptions, making such algorithms hard to break in practice by any adversary. It is theoretically possible to break such a system but it is infeasible to do so by any known practical means. These schemes are therefore termed computationally secure; theoretical advances, e.g., improvements in integer factorization algorithms, and faster computing technology require these solutions to be continually adapted. There exist information-theoretically secure schemes that provably cannot be broken even with unlimited computing power—an example is the one-time pad.

Base64 is a group of similar binary-to-text encoding schemes that represent binary data in an ASCII string format by translating it into a radix-64 representation. The term Base64 originates from a specific MIME content transfer encoding.
Base64 encoding schemes are commonly used when there is a need to encode binary data that needs to be stored and transferred over media that are designed to deal with textual data. This is to ensure that the data remains intact without modification during transport. Base64 is commonly used in a number of applications including email via MIME, and storing complex data in XML.

BitMail is the name used in GoldBug for the Email client.

Buzz is the name of the libspoton to provide echoed IRC (e*IRC). So Buzz is another word for IRC, respective e*IRC, used by the library.

"Care of", used to address a letter when the letter must pass through an intermediary (also written c/o). Neighbors are often asked to care of your postal letters, in case you live with them in one house or have a relationship to them. As well parcel stations, letter boxes or just persons e.g. at you home or in the neighborhood provide a local delay of your envelopes and parcels, in case you are at work and want to receive the parcel or letter in the evening. The included Email Function of GoldBug provides such a feature.

A call is new defined by the library libspoton. A "Call" with the MELODICA feature of GoldBug means, to transfer over a public/private key encrypted environment a symmetric key (e.g. AES) - a password for the session talk, only the two participants know. With one click on the MELODICA button you can instantly renew the end-to-end encryption password for your talk.

Congestion Control provides a cache, so that messages, you already are aware of, are not processed to neighbors anymore. This helps especially for mobile devices and webservers running GoldBug to reduce redundancy and process messages faster.

Decentralized computing is the allocation of resources, both hardware and software, to each individual workstation, or office location. Decentral means, there is no central server nor a webinterface, you can lof into a service. A client needs to be installed and adjusted locally on your device. Another term is: Distributed computing. Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. A distributed system is a software system in which components located on networked computers communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages. Based on a “grid model” a peer-to-peer system, or P2P system, is a collection of applications run on several local computers, which connect remotely to each other to complete a function or a task. There is no main operating system to which satellite systems are subordinate. This approach to software development (and distribution) affords developers great savings, as they don’t have to create a central control point. An example application is LAN messaging which allows users to communicate without a central server.

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The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities. Most prominently, it translates easily memorized domain names to the numerical IP addresses needed for the purpose of locating computer services and devices worldwide.
Dyn (aka DynDNS) is an infrastructure as a service company (like many others) that provides Internet DNS and email delivery services for commercial and private users.
It originally provided a free dynamic DNS service, which allowed users to have a subdomain that points to a computer with regularly changing IP addresses, such as those served by many consumer-level Internet service providers.

The IRC protocol has been defined new with the echo protocol, as the chat is not based on the irc protocol, the poper name would be E*IRC = Echo*IRC. GoldBug has currently implemented only one channel - how could it be, it is: goldbug (in small letters). All people, connected to one IP, just need to enter the room name, e.g. "goldbug" and they are connected within this group chat room. The advantage is, that this channel is created based on an AES-key. Every connection to this room is encrypted and cannot be read by any ISP - as long as the channel name is not known.

The echo protocol means from an operational view: you send only encrypted messages, but you send your to-be-send-message to all of your connected friends. They do the same. You maintain your own network, everyone has every message and you try to decrypt every message. In case you can read and unwrap it, it is a message for you. Otherwise you share the message with all your friends and the message remains encrypted. Echo is very simple and the principle is over 30 years old - nothing new. As echo uses HTTP as a protocol, there is no forwarding or routing of messages: no IPs are forwarded, e.g. like it is if you send your message e.g. from your home laptop to your webserver. The process starts at each destination new - as you define it. The echo protocol provided by libspoton has nothing to do with RFC 862. The new echo protocol RFC has to be written new. With or without that number.

With the modus "full echo" your message is forwarded from friend to friend and so on, until the recipient could decrypt the envelope and read the message. It requires a few connections to neighbors in a p2p network.

If you use the modus "half echo", then your message is not shared with other, third participants (Model: A -> B -> C) . Only direct connections are used (Model A -> B). It requires only one direct connection to one friend.

Public-key cryptography refers to a cryptographic system requiring two separate keys, one of which is secret and one of which is public. Although different, the two parts of the key pair are mathematically linked. One key locks or encrypts the plaintext, and the other unlocks or decrypts the ciphertext. Neither key can perform both functions by itself. The public key may be published without compromising security, while the private key must not be revealed to anyone not authorized to read the messages.
Public-key cryptography uses asymmetric key algorithms. A public key algorithm does not require a secure initial exchange of one (or more) secret keys between the sender and receiver. Public-key cryptography is widely used. It is an approach used by many cryptographic algorithms and cryptosystems. This method underpins such Internet standards as Transport Layer Security (TLS), PGP, G(nu)PG and libspoton, which is used for GoldBug. Diffie–Hellman key exchange is the most widely used public key distribution system.

Client-side encryption is the cryptographic technique of encrypting data before it is transmitted to a server in a computer network. Usually, encryption is performed with a key that is not known to the server. Consequently, the service provider is unable to decrypt the hosted data. In order to access the data, it must always be decrypted by the client. Client-side encryption allows for the creation of zero-knowledge applications whose providers cannot access the data its users have stored, thus offering a high level of privacy.

Multiple encryption  is the process of encrypting an already encrypted message one or more times, either using the same or a different algorithm. Multiple encryption (Cascade Ciphers) reduces the consequences in the case that our favorite cipher is already broken and is continuously exposing our data without our knowledge. When a cipher is broken (something we will not know), the use of other ciphers may represent the only security in the system. Since we cannot scientifically prove that any particular cipher is strong, the question is not whether subsequent ciphers are strong, but instead, what would make us believe that any particular cipher is so strong as to need no added protection. Folk Theorem: A cascade of ciphers is at least as diffcult to break as any of its component ciphers. When a cipher is broken (something we will not know), the use of other ciphers may represent the only security in the system. Since we cannot scientifically prove that any particular cipher is strong, the question is not whether subsequent ciphers are strong, but instead, what would make us believe that any particular cipher is so strong as to need no added protection.

Strong cryptography or cryptographically strong are general terms applied cryptographic systems or components that are considered highly resistant to cryptanalysis. An encryption algorithm is intended to be unbreakable (in which case it is as strong as it can ever be), but might be breakable (in which case it is as weak as it can ever be) so there is not, in principle, a continuum of strength as the idiom would seem to imply: Algorithm A is stronger than Algorithm B which is stronger than Algorithm C, and so on. Examples: PGP is generally considered an example of strong cryptography, with versions running under most popular operating systems and on various hardware platforms. The open source standard for PGP operations is OpenPGP, and GnuPG is an implementation of that standard from the FSF.
The AES algorithm is considered strong after being selected in a lengthy selection process that was open and involved numerous tests. The SSL protocol, used to secure Internet transactions, is generally considered strong. Standards of today.

There are two basic types of encryption schemes: Symmetric-key and public-key (asymmetric) encryption. Symmetric-key encryption is often as well called end-to-end-encryption. In symmetric-key schemes, the encryption and decryption keys are the same. Thus communicating parties must agree on a secret key before they wish to communicate. Symmetric-key encryption can use either stream ciphers or block ciphers. Stream ciphers encrypt the digits (typically bytes) of a message one at a time. Block ciphers take a number of bits and encrypt them as a single unit, padding the plaintext so that it is a multiple of the block size. Blocks of 64 bits have been commonly used. The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm approved in December 2001 uses 128-bit blocks. A symmetric structure used in the construction of block ciphers is in cryptography a Feistel cipher, named after the German-born physicist and cryptographer Horst Feistel who did pioneering research; it is also commonly known as a Feistel network.

The end-to-end principle is a classic design principle of computer networking,[nb 1] first explicitly articulated in a 1981 conference paper by Saltzer, Reed, and Clark.
The end-to-end principle states that application-specific functions ought to reside in the end hosts of a network rather than in intermediary nodes – provided they can be implemented "completely and correctly" in the end hosts. In debates about network neutrality, a common interpretation of the end-to-end principle is that it implies a neutral or "dumb" network. End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is an uninterrupted protection of the confidentiality and integrity of transmitted data by encoding it at its starting point and decoding it at its destination. It involves encrypting clear (red) data at source with knowledge of the intended recipient, allowing the encrypted (black) data to travel safely through vulnerable channels (e.g. public networks) to its recipient where it can be decrypted (assuming the destination shares the necessary key-variables and algorithms). An end-to-end encryption is often reached by providing an encryption with the AES Passphrase.

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A friend-to-friend (or F2F) computer network is a type of peer-to-peer network in which users only make direct connections with people they know. Passwords or digital signatures can be used for authentication.
Unlike other kinds of private P2P, users in a friend-to-friend network cannot find out who else is participating beyond their own circle of friends.

The Gemini is a feature in GoldBug Secure Instant Messenger to add another security layer to the chatroom with an AES Key for end-to-end encryption.

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web. The first version of the protocol had only one method, namely GET, which would request a page from a server. The response from the server was always an HTML page. GET requests a representation of the specified resource. Requests using GET should only retrieve data and should have no other effect.

The GoldBug-feature is used in the integrated email client to add here as well an end-to-end AES-Encryption layer - the GoldBug, or: just a password, both users use to encrypt their emails once more. So with the GoldBug, you need a kind of password (e.g. AES-string) to open the email of a friend or to be able to chat with him.

In computing, graphical user interface (GUI, sometimes pronounced 'gooey') is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and visual indicators such as secondary notation, as opposed to text-based interfaces, typed command labels or text navigation. Qt (/kjuːt/ "cute", or unofficially as Q-T cue-tee) is a cross-platform application framework that is widely used for developing application software with a graphical user interface (GUI) (in which cases Qt is classified as a widget toolkit). Qt uses standard C++.

A hash function is any algorithm that maps data of variable length to data of a fixed length. The values returned by a hash function are called hash values, hash codes, hash sums, checksums or simply hashes. A cryptographic hash function is a hash function; that is, an algorithm that takes an arbitrary block of data and returns a fixed-size bit string, the (cryptographic) hash value, such that any (accidental or intentional) change to the data will (with very high probability) change the hash value. The data to be encoded are often called the "message," and the hash value is sometimes called the message digest or simply digest. Cryptographic hash functions have many information security applications, notably in digital signatures, message authentication codes (MACs), and other forms of authentication. They can also be used as ordinary hash functions, to index data in hash tables, for fingerprinting, to detect duplicate data or uniquely identify files.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is a communications protocol for secure communication over a computer network, with especially wide deployment on the Internet. Technically, it is not a protocol in and of itself; rather, it is the result of simply layering the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) on top of the SSL/TLS protocol, thus adding the security capabilities of SSL/TLS to standard HTTP communications.

In mathematics, an iterated function is a function which is composed with itself, possibly ad infinitum, in a process called iteration. In this process, starting from some initial number, the result of applying a given function is fed again in the function as input, and this process is repeated.

In computing, the kernel is a computer program that manages input/output requests from software and translates them into data processing instructions for the central processing unit and other electronic components of a computer like the graphical user interface (GUI). Kernels are a fundamental part of a modern computer systems.

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libgcrypt is a cryptographic library developed as a separated module of GnuPG. It can also be used independently. It provides functions for all cryptographic building blocks: symmetric ciphers (IDEA, AES, DES, 3DES, Blowfish, CAST5, Twofish, Arcfour, Serpent, Camellia, SEED a.k.a. RFC4269, RFC2268), hash algorithms (MD4, MD5, RIPEMD-160, SHA-1, SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512, HAVAL, Tiger-192 as used by GnuPG <= 1.3.2, Tiger, and TIGER2), MACs (HMAC for all hash algorithms), and public key algorithms (RSA, ElGamal, DSA, Elliptic Curve DSA).

Spot-On is an anonymous and encrypted distributed, confidential messaging library in the forms of e-mail and near-instant communications.

In computer networking, a port is an application-specific or process-specific software construct serving as a communications endpoint in a computer's host operating system. A port is associated with an IP address of the host, as well as the type of protocol used for communication. The purpose of ports is to uniquely identify different applications. Applications implementing common services often use specifically reserved, well-known port numbers for receiving service requests from client hosts. This process is known as listening and involves the receipt of a request on the well-known port and establishing a one-to-one server-client connection, using the same local port number; other clients may continue to connect to the listening port. This works because a TCP connection is identified by the tuple {local address, local port, remote address, remote port}.

With the MELODICA feature in GoldBug Secure Messenger you call your friend and send him a new Gemini (AES-256-Key). The Key is sent over your asymmetric encryption of the RSA key. This is a secure way, as all other plaintext transferals like email, spoken over phone or in other messengers have to be regarded as unsafe and recorded. MELODICA stands for: Multi Encrypted LOng DIstance CAlling. You call your friend even over a long distance of the echo protocol and exchange over secure asymmetric encryption a Gemini (AES-256 key) to establish an end-to-end encryted channel.

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In production and development, open source as a development model promotes a universal access via free license to a product's design or blueprint, and b) universal redistribution of that design or blueprint, including subsequent improvements to it by anyone. Generally, open source refers to a computer program in which the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design.

OpenSSL is an open-source implementation of the SSL and TLS protocols. The core library, written in the C programming language, implements the basic cryptographic functions and provides various utility functions. Wrappers allowing the use of the OpenSSL library in a variety of computer languages are available. OpenSSL is based on SSLeay by Eric A. Young and Tim Hudson.

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A passphrase is a sequence of words or other text used to control access to a computer system, program or data. A passphrase is similar to a password in usage, but is generally longer for added security. Passphrases are often used to control both access to, and operation of, cryptographic programs and systems. Passphrases are particularly applicable to systems that use the passphrase as an encryption key. The origin of the term is by analogy with password. The passphrase in GoldBug must be at least 16 characters long, this is used to create a cryptographic hash, which is longer and stronger.

Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is a data encryption and decryption computer program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication. PGP is often used for signing, encrypting and decrypting texts, e-mails, files, directories and whole disk partitions to increase the security of e-mail communications. PGP encryption uses a serial combination of hashing, data compression, symmetric-key cryptography and finally public-key cryptography; each step uses one of several supported algorithms.
The Free Software Foundation has developed its own OpenPGP-compliant program called GNU Privacy Guard (abbreviated GnuPG or GPG). GnuPG is freely available together with all source code under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

In computer networking, a port is an application-specific or process-specific software construct serving as a communications endpoint in a computer's host operating system. A port is associated with an IP address of the host, as well as the type of protocol used for communication. The purpose of ports is to uniquely identify different applications
Applications implementing common services often use specifically reserved, well-known port numbers for receiving service requests from client hosts. This process is known as listening and involves the receipt of a request on the well-known port and establishing a one-to-one server-client connection, using the same local port number; other clients may continue to connect to the listening port. This works because a TCP connection is identified by the tuple {local address, local port, remote address, remote port}.

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web. The first version of the protocol had only one method, namely GET, which would request a page from a server. POST requests are defined like this: Requests that the server accept the entity enclosed in the request as a new subordinate of the web resource identified by the URI. The data POSTed might be, as examples, an annotation for existing resources; a message for a bulletin board, newsgroup, mailing list, or comment thread; a block of data that is the result of submitting a web form to a data-handling process; or an item to add to a database.

In computer networks, a proxy server is a server (a computer system or an application) that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers. A client connects to the proxy server, requesting some service, such as a file, connection, web page, or other resource available from a different server and the proxy server evaluates the request as a way to simplify and control its complexity. Today, most proxies are web proxies, facilitating access to content on the World Wide Web.

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The use of these (public key) algorithms also allows the authenticity of a message to be checked by creating a digital signature of the message using the private key, which can then be verified by using the public key. In practice, only a hash of the message is typically encrypted for signature verification purposes. The Digital Signature Algorithm is the most widely used digital signature system.

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Transport Layer Security (TLS) and its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), are cryptographic protocols that provide communication security over the Internet. They use asymmetric cryptography for authentication of key exchange, symmetric encryption for confidentiality and message authentication codes for message integrity. Several versions of the protocols are in widespread use in applications such as web browsing, electronic mail, Internet faxing and instant messaging.

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