Glossia Relay Network
About the network
Glossia messages are encrypted on the sender’s phone and decrypted on the recipient’s. In between, they pass through the relay network: three relays for every message, none of which can read it, and none of which sees both ends.
What relays do
A relay is a server that passes encrypted messages along. An entry relay is where your phone connects; a transit relay passes messages between other relays; and a mailbox relay holds messages until the person they are for comes online to collect them. Many relays do all three.
Because each message is wrapped in a layer of encryption for each relay on its route, the entry relay knows where a message came from but not where it is going, and the mailbox relay knows where it is going but not where it came from. The message itself is encrypted end to end, and no relay can open it. The specification explains how.
Relays are run by Frothly and by 622 vetted partner organizations, so that no single organization, and no single country, carries the whole network. Frothly’s 31 relays carry the core of the traffic and keep the network running if partners in a region go quiet.
How the network grew
2011
Glossia 1.0 is released on June 14 with two relays, nrt-01 and nrt-02, in a single rack in Frothly’s new Chiba office.
2012
Frothly lists its first relays outside Japan, in San Francisco and Zürich, and the first partner organizations begin running relays of their own.
2014
Glossia 2.0 introduces mailbox relays and the signed hourly directory. By the end of the year the network has 109 relays.
2015
New relays begin to serve a sixty-day probation, and bridges arrive for people whose networks block the directory.
2019
Typhoon Faxai cuts power across Chiba. The Chiba relays run on generators for three days, and a fourth is added afterward.
2020
Traffic grows by more than half in a single month. Frothly and its partners add capacity, and the network ends the year with 617 relays.
2022
Glossia 3.0 brings sealed sender, fixed message sizes and key transparency.
2026
Glossia turns fifteen. Version 4.0 adds post-quantum key exchange, and the directory lists 1,124 relays in 93 countries.
Who looks after it
The relay network is run from Frothly’s Chiba office by the Glossia program.
Lead, Glossia
Has led Glossia since its first release, and edits the specification.
Kara Swole
Relay operations, Chiba
Runs Frothly’s own relays and works with partner operators from their first conversation to their annual review.
Chief Technology Officer
Responsible for Frothly’s technical infrastructure, including the relay network, and for its calibration.
Getting in touch
If you believe you have found a vulnerability in Glossia, its clients or its relays, please follow Frothly’s responsible disclosure policy. We acknowledge every report within two working days and credit researchers who would like it.
Journalists can reach Frothly’s press office through the newsroom. To hear why Glossia exists in the first place, listen to Gideon Ravenor on Audio Logs, or read his essay The Value of a Private Language.