It will be open source, end to end encrypted using Signal’s double ratchet encryption protocol, and he plans to make it easy for fediverse platforms to integrate it. The beta will release later this month.
He’s also the creator of https://fedidb.org btw
While I doubt I could get my friends and family on yet ANOTHER messaging app in the year of our lord 2023.
Sup. Is a fucking brilliant name.
Could be a fantastic way to replace dm, that’s my first thought.
I remember idly wondering how DMs worked in Lemmy, and I was kinda shocked when I realized they aren’t secure.
“secure” is relative. They may not be e2e encrypted, but they are still encrypted via TLS, like any HTTPS traffic. It’s the same encryption used for online banking. If you care about your instance admin being able to read your messages, you should use Signal or a Matrix client though.
But remember that only a few years ago, almost nobody used e2e encryption, and it wasn’t much of an issue.
Double rachet encryption protocol is also rather dope
I personally hate the name, but only because I had a roommate in college who would start every conversation with “sup.”
On text messages, IMs, in person, you name it. It really started to get under my skin.
But I hope the software is good.
sup.
Yep. That’s what he’d do. So basically he’d always want you to start the conversation.
No man, you’re just supposed to say “Sup.” back to them and then repeat ad nauseum.
After a few sups, the least dominate of the two has to say “nunmuch chu?”
So, you’re playing a little Playstation, huh? That’s whack. Playstation is whack. 'Sup with the whack Playstation, 'sup?
(what’)SUP 🤪
I might know that guy lol
I think it will integrate with the existing fediverse
I just saw this on Mastodon and was about to post it here. 😄
Pretty cool idea. Though I’m not looking forward to trying to convince my friends to switch to yet another new platform. 😂
Im mainly looking forward to it replacing the “DMs” of mastodon and lemmy.
I’ve not been on either platform long enough to use the DMs, but this is a good point.
After all, DMs aren’t actually private on either platform, as far as I’m aware.
If they’re not end to end encrypted, your messages are not actually private on any platform.
It’s a bit more obvious in the Fediverse than elsewhere, as direct messages are generally stored on two separate servers (sender and receiver). Furthermore each server tends to be smaller: if Zuckerberg decides to go through people’s DMs it’s unlikely to affect any particular Facebook user, but if the owner of a Mastodon instance does the same it’s small enough that she could actually get an overview. It’s mostly a false sense of security embedded in larger services, but people are all about having a false sense of security.
Like anything, depends on the threat model. Private from your little sister? Probably. Private from your boss, at least in the next few months prior to them being leaked? Also probably. Private enough?
That’s to some extent a question that can only be answered individually, as everyone’s threat models differ. I suppose this fact (everyone having differing threat models) is one of the reasons that so many arguments occur over security.
In the end any successful chat service is going to be used by horny teenagers sharing nudes with each other, which is honestly for me better reason than any state secret why all communications should be end to end encrypted at all times. I don’t trust Zuckerberg or Musk with that, or any other third party for that matter.
DMs aren’t actually private on either platform, as far as I’m aware.
“Private” is not really a binary concept.
They’re “private” in the sense that no one can see them other than the participants and the server admin (if they really wanted to).
They’re not private in the sense that they can be hacked and leaked, or subpoenaed.
Yep. That was my first thought - how everyone says to use Matrix rather than Lemmy DMs for anything sensitive. This will be fantastic.
TIL you can DM on lemmy
Right now I just think about me and how I’ll use it. I’m eager to try this messaging app to have a way of being reachable by like-minded people.
To put it differently, I don’t want to be a slave of others’ choices. I know the network effect is real and that I’m powerless to break it. So I’ll just change my attitude, and embrace this wave. Who knows what will happen? And in the meanwhile, I’ll have fun using what to me seems right.
Tell 'em it’s the last one they’ll need to.
This is good.
It really is. In the past a new messenger or Plattform was always annoying as it inevitable meant, how can I get my friends to use this. But with activity pub it doesn’t matter anymore. Everbody can use the fediverse software of his taste and we can still all be interconnected. What a relieve. So many software solutions can compete against each other without us having always to start from zero. Brave new world.
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He’s a madman
I wonder if he is friends with the guy who runs calibre and kitty terminal. I read somewhere that he was seriously planning to single-handedly maintain python 2 after it was EOLed because it was so integral to calibre. But was eventually talked into transitioning to python 3. The idea of that is totally nuts; the guy is a machine.
I’ve been following Daniel since he started working on Pixelfed and dude’s a beast. His code and skill improved astronomically and he just doesn’t stop. Great example of how “doing it” is best way to learn anything software related.
Makes more sense as matrix client than ActivityPub
Oh god matrix is such a bitch to handle and deal with, laggy and just in need of so much work. I’ll be so happy to have an alternative.
I used it and hosted it for months with friends and family and we all got locked out due to bugs and had neighboring federated servers that wouldn’t connect.
What year? I’ve run a docker synapse for a couple years with no issues (other than iOS client encryption bugs). I was surprised I could run it without a restart for 6months+
This year. I gave it a VPS with plenty of cores and memory too. It’s like once I got it working it would work for awhile right, nbd. But then when I’d join a federated room over on matrix.org it would literally take days to add it. I even smoke tested it with their federation tester.
The lockout I’m describing is like an auth bug. The moment you sign in in a couple different places it has trouble unencrypting messages and even if you verify the other devices identity it will act like it’s still unrecognized, and delete messages. It happened to my girlfriend, then my friend, then me. Twice in two separate attempts to use it daily. I tried using it as a complete iMessage replacement across all platforms so I’m saying I was using it heavily.
And yeah I used docker too. It’s a neat concept it just falls apart at scale from what I’ve literally seen twice. Doesn’t matter what client I used either.
just yesterday element literally gave up on joining the nix matrix space after staying at joining for hours on my selfhosted dendrite instance
a week or so ago the exact same thing happened with the arch matrix channel
I’m still trying to figure out why this would be used over Matrix. It seems to be the same without bridges?
this rocks actually. I’ve kinda wanted this for a while
I’m not leaving Signal until someone implements keeping data at rest encrypted on both ends and requires multi factor unlock (bio+pin is my choice).
So sick of E2E clients that leave the data in plaintext on the devices and then back it up in plaintext to the cloud.
Does Signal back up in plaintext in the cloud? (If so that doesn’t sound like E2E encryption… unless the ‘ends’ are uh… also constituted as the cloud itself which is… defeating the purpose).
Where do the pub/ private keys live, exactly, tbh. (Assuming it is asymmetric encryption that they use?)
Edit: ah, misread. I thought you said that you were not joining it due to it storing plain text in the cloud.
Signal doesn’t store any of your chats at all. They’re all on-device by design
Hm… If they’re not being stored on the cloud, that means offline users would never receive messages, unless Signal is purely P2P. I haven’t looked at the project, or the source, but I find it hard to believe – you can’t really do user lookups without some sort of middleware in the cloud.
All the data they have on any specific user is the account creation date, and the last online timestamp. They’ve already done loops around this topic in the DOJ.
And I thought it should be obvious that an online service doesn’t work if you’re offline
Yeah, but messengers, such as WhatsApp for instance, will send you missed messages once you’re back online. That’s what I was referring to.
You’re right, Signal is not P2P. The way Signals messaging pipeline works is like this - note I’m oversimplifying it for accessibility.
Sending a message to
Bob- You press
Send. - The message is encrypted on your device with a key that can only be unlocked by
Bob. - The message is then “sealed” so that there’s only a “deliver to” field visible (not a “from”).
- The “deliver to” field is addressed with a hashed/salted label for
Bob- this means Signal’s server can see its a unique user, but not what their name is. - The message is finally sent to Signal’s servers.
- Your message sits on Signals servers until it can be delivered to the intended recipient.
you can’t really do user lookups without some sort of middleware in the cloud.
See their blog post about Private Contact Discovery, they’ve spent a long time figuring out how to engineer a method to know as little as possible about you.
Thanks for the explanation.
- You press
No, signal does not do cloud backups. The keys live on the end users devices.
Your link,
https://mastodon.social/@dansup/110836811082599292%20sup.%20is%20an%20open%20source%20encrypted%20fediverse%20instant%20messenger,%20similar%20to%20whatsapp,%20made%20by%20pixelfed.%20%20The%20beta%20will%20be%20launching%20later%20this%20month,%20and%20btw%20most%20fediverse%20accounts%20will%20work,%20not%20just%20Pixelfed%20%F0%9F%98%89is broken. I think you accidentally copied the body text as well. Cleaning up the link results in https://mastodon.social/@dansup/110836811082599292, which works fine.Thanks, fixed.
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Desktop fscking client, please. Not electron based would be nice, yes? QT is good.
ICQ-style or old Skype-style user directory would be wonderful too. VoIP is not something I’d care about, file transfers are.
This is cool.
Chill, you’re not the only one here.
VoIP in a mainstream messenger is something that most people use nowadays to avoid calling people from their SIM cards which costs them much.
Video calling too is something I personally use too especially on iMessage or Telegram.
I’m a software engineer, I appreciate some old school things that work perfectly well like ICQ or Vim or emacs or working only with shortcuts. But you know what’s also a shortcut? Not having to use 50 different messengers just because this one doesn’t have VoIP and I can’t bring my friends or my mom here but I can bring only my nerd friends”.
This is all business and target audience oriented. You are not the only target audience out there and especially when you don’t demand from a messenger to be able to have VoIP. Even Instagram has VoIP these days. A photo-video-media sharing app. Let alone a messenger.
Chill, you’re not the only one here.
I talked about various audiences not just myself. The person I replied to talked as if the app was made for him explicitly. “VoIP is not something I’d care about, file transfers are” like this kind of talking is like bruh, the app is not made only for you.
yeah, the app is made for you and him. So doing the math we have a -1 “VoIP is not something I’d care about” and a +1 “Video calling too is something I personally use…” which results in 0% significance. So let’s just talk, voice our opinions, and chill.
No, the app is made for everybody who wants to use a messenger. Not just you and him. It’s supposed to be under the standards of the feddiverse.
The comments here are not a poll. Providing especially personal comments about a nerdy user like me and the guy I replied about “I would like it like ICQ” and such shit, would not help the creator make a good choice. Most people nowadays, especially zoomers, dont even know what ICQ is or how it works or how to even login to it. Most people, proven by ehm … the success of messenger, discord, whatsapp, telegram, viber, signal everything … want a messenger that provides what the mainstream messenger wants with most of the features that everybody provides and are mainstream used while having ease of access.
We should try to help the creator. Not misguide him. Again, the comments are not a poll, they’re supposed to help to make a constructive conversation. And when you talk as if the app is made only about yourself, you’re not really helping.
We don’t take kindly to people who think they’re the only one here.
I’m not a fan of Pixelfed, or instaclones. But the idea of a messenger e2ee that works with all the fedi is such a awesome idea.
Why are you not a fan? I’m genuinely curious, as I’m vaguely evaluating such software.
Not OP but personally I just don’t like picture centric social media. Just not my thing.
I wonder, what 'works with the fediverse ’ could mean for a messenger and what could be features not already implemented by different messengers, like elements or the very signal.
From the side of the Messanger, it could implement stories from pixelfed and communities from Lemmy/mastodon/kbin etc.
I don’t know if anyone is asking for this, but Whatsapp has both, so someone must be using them, right?
As from the side of every other fediverse app, I think it could be a good way of implementing DM functionality without developing and maintaining it for every single app. Maybe. I don’t know really, depends on how it’s developed/implemented
Great news that it will work across the fediverse. I’d love to try pixelfed for example, but its got too much of a walled garden thing going on since nobody I know uses it.
I just uninstalled Pixelfed. Mostly because the app is absolutely garbage on Android, and the developer made it look like an iOS app.
The app is just so dead. I’m happy to revisit later, but as for now I’ll stick with posting my stuff on Mastodon and Lemmy.
Fedilab works great for me.
Sadly it doesn’t look so much like an iOS app, more like a bad Instagram clone 😕
Honestly, I don’t hate that Idea much bcoz I think it will help users switching from IG to PixelFed.
so this is basically fb messenger but it works with twitter, YouTube and reddit (their federated alternatives mastodon peertube lemmy) and is e2ee!
super cool!
How is this different than something like Matrix? I’m probably just not understanding something…
This is meant to work with the ActivityPub fediverse ie. Mastodon, Lemmy, Kbin, Pixelfed etc. and you would be able to use your current lemmy.world account for messaging.
But why is that such a great benefit? We already have a myriad accounts for different services/platforms; would this be merely a marginal improvement over the current situation?
One of the most used feature of Facebook and Instagram is their messenger. It’s much easier for people to use the same account they use for social media to communicate with each other. A direct messaging feature within fediverse would augment the current ecosystem and make more people transition away from big corporations
I see, makes sense. So if I get it correctly, the idea is to make it easier for new people to join the fediverse, and not so much to improve the experience for those of us already here (although it seems that is also a goal).
Nice. This sounds like a federated signal messanger? Why not using matrix or xmpp? 🤨
Can you use matrix with a lemmy or mastodon account?
No, right now you need two separate accounts but you could combine them if you wanted to
I have no idea what the fediverse brings to an E2EE IM app. They seem like contradictory concepts.
no walls?
All existing messengers have “no walls” if you consider they all transfer data via TCP/IP. Except the wall is the encryption/higher level protocol. Now just replace TCP/IP with federated servers. Different messengers will be unable to communicate with each other because they’d need to implement the same encryption.
If you’re able to standardize the encryption then things can interoperate if it’s fediverse based or not.
According to this post, Signal can federate, but chooses not to. In another post, it’s said that Matrix is based off Signal.
So, one way to look at it announcement is “you will be able send Signal/Matrix messages from your fediverse instance of choice”, I believe
Kind of surreal seeing my own Mastodon post linked, damn.
If you’re curious about the details I refer to, there’s an indepth article on lwn.net regarding this from 2016 here: https://lwn.net/Articles/687294/
That article was very informative, thanks!
Huh. I wonder what they mean by “bad user UX”. I was expecting concerns about encryption or privacy, not UX. I already use Signal, so it would be a positive for me if they federate.
To be a bit more precise, Signal is against federation from two angles:
-
Innovation: Signal values absolute control over the protocol so that they can more rapidly implement UX experiences scene in other modern messaging apps. It also eliminates malicious or outdated servers changing the UX between users. Ultimately folks won’t blame the servers, they’ll blame the app, and stop using it.
-
No rope for users: They seem pretty confident that the Apple-style of software and UX is right— if a user can change stuff enough to break it, they will. For secure messaging, they’d rather users have fewer choices to be sure it is secure.
-
“you will be able send Signal/Matrix messages from your fediverse instance of choice”
While no details are clear, it’ll definitely not be this. Matrix has it’s own implementation which isn’t compatible with signal (megolm or something like that), and I really don’t think dansup will be making it matrix compatible. It’ll probably be its own thing.
Oh, that’s a shame. It’s one of the bummers of instant messaging, everything seems to be incompatible with everything
Yeah … I read it as well.
This announcement does not mean that the services (signal, matrix, etc) will be integrated. At one point there’ll be a bridge for matrix. But like google, all of them need to implements MLS at one point. Maybe then they’ll be able to communicate
Signal has been the basis of basically every private messenger since it’s inception. They may have since forked but they’re almost all based loosely on it’s concepts.
