1.3 Instant Messaging Software

With the widespread adoption of smartphones, instant messaging has gradually replaced traditional 2G SMS and voice calls in people's daily lives. In countries with advanced mobile communication, instant messaging applications such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and WeChat have greatly facilitated people's daily life and communication. In emerging countries, there is a significant demand for the "IM + e-payment" model, especially among urban residents. Instant messaging apps and applications have become platforms for value-added services such as advertising, mobile games, e-commerce, and peripheral services. The MORCECHAIN team is committed to building a complete online ecosystem and creating a "one-stop shop" for individuals and businesses in emerging markets.

As instant messaging software rapidly develops, traditional enterprises have gradually exposed some issues. Traditional IM applications typically involve three parties: the platform, partners, and users. Each party plays a crucial role, but their goals often diverge from each other. The current model lacks a means to enable coexistence and coordination of their incentives. Driven by their self-interest, the future of social networks becomes uncertain. Platforms and partner associations do everything possible to obtain user information for extracting big data for analysis, which has led to serious privacy crises.

In 2013, the exposure of PRISM, a surveillance program conducted by the United States National Security Agency involving Facebook, Skype, Microsoft, Apple, and Yahoo!, caused a major uproar. As a user, you might not have done anything wrong, but you could become a subject of suspicion and surveillance. The project could scrutinize all your past decisions and review all your conversations with friends, and you could be punished for sending just one wrong message. Nowadays, users in some countries pay more attention to personal privacy, while users in other countries may not care about what authorities do or the privacy policy statements in software applications.

In 2016, Amnesty International published a "Social Media Communication Privacy Ranking," which spread widely on social networks. The ranking compared and evaluated mainstream social media services in five aspects: "user rights protection," "end-to-end encryption," "risk notification," "transparency," and "publishing encryption technology details." As global mainstream IMs, Skype and WeChat only scored 40 and 0 points (out of 100), respectively. The ranking indicated the severity of privacy risks. The traditional information encryption technology is known as "transmission encryption," where service providers use different encryption methods to encrypt the transmission of information. The biggest drawback of this encryption method is that messages sent between users are plaintext. In other words, if the service provider responsible for information transmission wants to peek into user privacy or unintentionally releases information, all users' chat records will be exposed publicly without reservation.

The disturbing future prospect is no longer the disclosure of personal information but the prediction of user behavior. When technology reaches a state where artificial intelligence can predict, influence, and guide people's decisions, ethical issues arise when the intellectual property and algorithms of these artificial intelligence are controlled by a large corporation.

Blockchain is a new comprehensive application mode of computer technology, which includes distributed data storage, peer-to-peer transmission, consensus mechanism, and encryption algorithms. Blockchain has been widely praised as a powerful guarantee for digital assets. However, traditional IMs should be responsible for user privacy and have not provided any corresponding entry points for blockchain. Meanwhile, third-party product providers of traditional IMs are constantly competing with each other to ensure their interests. They cannot enter a mutually beneficial state. Over time, as products become more homogeneous, the industry will tend towards mergers and acquisitions, leading to the elimination of some products. This not only damages market diversity but also stifles many great ideas.