The group of NATO countries (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is now reportedly developing their own messaging application that uses open source technology for use among member countries.
Named NATO Interoperable Instant Communication Environment or NI2CE, this messaging application is reportedly being developed by a communications company called Matrix, which is known for open and decentralized network technology.
This use of open network technology and decentralized messaging is nothing new. NATO members such as Germany, France, Poland, Austria, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States are all already using this messaging system by Matrix because of its use of open source, built-in encryption and is not limited to the companies that developed this technology.
In fact, what is even more interesting is that according to Matrix, NATO countries that have already started using their messaging applications can add a few lines of code to allow their applications to interact with the messaging applications of other countries.
And with NI2CE, it is seen to be able to help government leaders from this NATO group to communicate with each other, especially when NATO now has as many as 32 member countries in it.
Jeroen Franssen, a community manager at the Innovation Branch of Allied Command Transformation in NATO said that the proof of concept of this messaging technology is being tested by 700 people representing NATO members, and will be extended to more users when its use can be officially announced.
Even more interesting is that the protocol used can not only be used in messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Telegram, but in group collaboration applications such as Microsoft Teams, Slack and even Discord.
The biggest challenge in developing technology and protocols like this comes through the development of communication gateways that are not only secure, but can combine various types of applications developed for internal communication between all the countries involved.
So far it is not known whether the NATO side will want to use this messaging application for closed purposes or introduce it as a way for all people in the countries of this group to easily communicate with each other.