this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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Just a hint for people searching a tiny selfhosted messenger with encryption and apps for iOS and android.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The person you're talking too can be on a different one and their admin can see them too.

That very much depends on the protocol and type of federation, but a good point indeed

Also, I wouldn't want to be able to access content from any user - it's a "no trust needed" thing.

Sure, but e2ee also comes with lots of trade-offs and strings attached, that almost only ever make sense in case of extreme centralization (i.e. in a non-federation, where trust in the faceless provider is not an option). PFS means that setting up a new device is a PITA because you can't access your full messages history on new devices without off-band synchronization, no server-side search means that clients are either limited in this area or have to carry large histories and inefficiently search themselves, MITM/server-mediated attacks are only mitigated with verification (on top of encryption), which is a UX disaster for users non-versed into crypto (and this complexity is imposed upon such users no matter what), etc, etc.

Of course I'm not advocating against e2ee in the general case (and quite the opposite at that), but if you self host (topic of this community) for yourself and few family members, the downsides quickly outweigh the benefits and so I believe that e2ee should be left at the discretion of the users.

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

Right, but when there's third parties involved which you may not trust (which is almost always going to be the case when talking to users not on your server), e2e's benefit starts becoming a lot more enticing. And while you have a point on out of band key sharing being annoying, it makes sense as a default - especially when content is going across servers. Content should be secure with an opt-out rather than insecure with an opt-in. The latter is just more error prone.

Also: while it's not friction free, apps like signal have shown that you can get verified e2e to be usable for the general population.