1
Key exchange
When two parties connect, they perform an ML-KEM key exchange to establish a shared secret without ever transmitting the secret itself.
Security
Encrypted before it leaves your hand.
Your keys are generated on your device and never sent to us. We can't read your messages, and neither can anyone who gets access to our servers.
The stack
ML-KEM-1024
Post-quantum key exchange
The NIST-standardized lattice scheme, formerly CRYSTALS-Kyber. Traffic captured today stays unreadable to the quantum computers of tomorrow.
XCHACHA20-POLY1305
Authenticated encryption
Every message, image, video and file is sealed and signed, so tampering is detected, not just hidden.
FORWARD SECRECY
Fresh keys every session
Keys rotate constantly and old ones are destroyed. Compromising one session never unlocks the ones before it.
Under the hood
Double ratchet perfect forward secrecy
Every message in IronCircles generates a new set of ML-KEM encryption keys, ensuring future and past messages stay safe even if one message is ever compromised.
Forward secrecy, explained
A short walkthrough of how a ratchet keeps old conversations closed even after a key leaks.
How the Double Ratchet works
The Double Ratchet algorithm is the encryption mechanism used to ensure content in all Circles is fully end-to-end encrypted. It combines an ML-KEM ratchet with a symmetric-key ratchet to provide both forward secrecy and break-in recovery.
2
Ratchet forward
Every single message generates a new set of ML-KEM encryption keys. The chain “ratchets” forward and old states cannot be re-derived from new ones.
3
Symmetric encryption
Each message is encrypted with a unique symmetric key derived from the current ratchet state using XChaCha20-Poly1305.
4
Break-in recovery
Because keys are never reused, a compromised message key exposes only that single message. Past and future messages stay safe.
Post quantum layer
On top of the Double Ratchet, IronCircles layers Post Quantum Cryptography to protect against future quantum computers. PQC algorithms replace traditional integer factorization-based cryptography with lattice-based problems that quantum processors cannot shortcut, so every message gets both post-quantum protection and perfect forward secrecy.
PDF
Security white paper
The full technical breakdown of IronCircles' encryption architecture.
Download PDFWhere your data goes
Four steps, one rule: nothing readable ever leaves the device.
01
Keys made locally
Sign up with a username and password. Your key pair is generated on the phone and never transmitted.
02
Sealed on device
Text, photos, video and files are encrypted before a single byte hits the network.
03
Relayed blind
Our servers pass ciphertext between members of a circle. There is no plaintext copy to hand over.
04
Opened by members only
Only devices holding the circle's keys can decrypt. Leave, and your data leaves with you.
What we collect
The honest version, straight from our policy. There is no profile of you to breach, sell, or subpoena.
Your real nameNOT COLLECTED
Your locationNOT COLLECTED
Your IP addressNOT COLLECTED
Browsing historyNOT COLLECTED
ContactsNOT COLLECTED
A device ID, so we can send “you have a new message”YES, THAT'S IT
Controls in your hands
Invite-only, by vote
No one joins a circle or a conversation without express permission from its members.
Hidden chats & vaults
Conversations and albums locked behind their own key, invisible on an unlocked phone.
Expiring media
Disappearing messages, and images or videos that can be opened exactly once.
Remote wipe Privacy+
Lost the phone? Clear the app and its contents from anywhere, immediately.
No backdoors
There is no master key, no admin override, and no mechanism for us to read a circle.
Host it yourself
Run your own network on your own hardware, a server, a closet machine, even a Raspberry Pi.