Message Transfer Protocol Between Social Messengers
Subject Areas : ICT
Hamzeh Sezavar
1
,
Hamed Monkaresi
2
,
Hassan Nickaein
3
,
Mehdi Mozaffari
4
1 - Department of Computer Engineering and Information Technology, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran
2 - Department of Computer Engineering and Information Technology, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran
3 - Department of Computer Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
4 - Information Technology of Iran
Keywords: Message Exchange Protocol, Interoperability, Social Messengers, Security, Privacy,
Abstract :
The proliferation of social networks has revolutionized communication. The multitude of these networks and the diversity of services they offer to their users have led individuals to sign up for one or more of them according to their preferences and discretion. However, this has made it difficult to communicate with people who use other social networks, forcing users to sign up for multiple platforms to maintain connections with different groups. This research introduces a web-based protocol to facilitate seamless message exchange between different social networks, thereby eliminating the need for users to maintain multiple messaging apps. The proposed system supports channels and groups while enabling interoperability between various social networks. The European Union's law for social networks with more than 45 million monthly active users emphasizes the need for such a solution to support Interoperability. Each messaging app has its unique address space, and creating channels or groups with identical identifiers on different messaging apps is possible without any issues. Importantly, this system can be integrated with existing messaging app infrastructures with minimal changes. This research provides a suitable solution to the current limitations of social network interoperability, improving user experience and preserving privacy. The protocol introduced in this article has finally been implemented and used by 5 popular messengers in Iran, which have a total of more than 40 million monthly active users. In less than three months after implementation, more than 1.5 million users have communicated with each other using this protocol across different messaging platforms.
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