BitTorrent, the company which maintains the popular peer-to-peer downloading protocol, has announced an entry into the world of secure communications.

With the launch of the alpha version of BitTorrent Private Chat, users are able to use a similar version of the distributed network that enables fast (and frequently illegal) downloads of large files in order to chat privately and securely.

The product is currently in private alpha, an early pre-release stage of development, and BitTorrent is keeping quiet about the technology behind it, but the company has confirmed that it will work in a similar way to its BitTorrent Sync product.

Sync allows users to keep files up-to-date over multiple computers using a distributed network. Files to be shared are broken into small chunks, encrypted, and sent to many pre-selected devices. From there, they can be re-downloaded by other computers, even before the full file exists on machine other than the source.

If the encryption implementation is secure, distributed chat offers potential. By avoiding a centralised server, Private Chat reduces the ease of large-scale government interception. But hiding the metadata of the messages, which encryption pioneer Phil Zimmermann warned can be almost as important as the content, is a harder programming challenge.

Users can apply to be part of the private alpha on the BitTorrent website.

• This story has been amended to clarify that BitTorrent Chat is not built on BitTorrent Sync.

• Why should you use a private chat client? Silent Circle's Mike Janke warns that email is "fundamentally broken".