this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2023
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The creator of Pixelfed announced an upcoming encrypted messenger for the fediverse that will work across the fediverse (mastodon.social)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/technology
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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

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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

[–] spacedancer 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

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 It also eliminates malicious or outdated servers changing the UX between users.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.

[–] matt 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

That article was very informative, thanks!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

“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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Oh, that's a shame. It's one of the bummers of instant messaging, everything seems to be incompatible with everything