slayerpart/spec

Technical specification of the Tanker SDK and protocol for end-to-end encryption

Tanker: How it works

Technical specification of the Tanker SDK and protocol for end-to-end encryption

This document is a deep dive into the design of Tanker Core, its infrastructure, the cryptographic underpinnings and algorithms, what transits over the protocol, and the security model. It aims to be open and to answer all of the possible questions one might ask when considering adopting this technology.

Note that since Tanker FileKit is implemented on top of Tanker Core, this specification works for both products.

If you have additional questions that you'd like to see answered, please open an issue.

We want to stress that you don't need to understand this spec in order to use the Tanker SDK. Its APIs are simple and require no cryptographic skills. To learn how to integrate the Tanker SDK in your apps, please refer to our documentation.

Table of contents

• Overview
• Concepts
• Core features
• Trustchain Design
• Protocol
• Blocks format
• Blocks verification rules
• Encryption formats
• Threat model

Copyright

The document as a whole and each of the elements that composes it (texts, articles, photographs, illustrations, diagrams, tables, logos, trademarks, architecture, software code) are protected by intellectual property law and are the exclusive property of or are licensed to Tanker. Tanker grants a non-exclusive right to use (in particular, by downloading, reproduction, representation) such document and its elements strictly for internal use for the purpose of assessing the opportunity to adopt Tanker’s technology. Any other use, and particularly any use for commercial purpose is not allowed.