as an abstract thought… I have not seen a technical reason prohibiting federated e2e encrypted messages at some point in the future. so, when development can shift immediate focus from the “must-haves” and toward the “nice-to-haves”, we may well get secure, private, on-network DMs.
I think the normal issue prohibiting e2e encrypted messages being actually good is that end to end encryption requires keys, and keys require verification, and verification requires a trusted outside channel.
As it stands I would want a secure line to some random user I don’t know anything about, so I need a key. Where do I get a user’s key? I ask the same untrusted admin of their lemmy instance for it and they give it to me. How do I validate this key is actually this user’s? I don’t, I just trust the key the admin gave me. Then I encrypt my message and send it over.
So it protects against an honest instance being attacked later. Or against a shortsighted admin who might feel a little like peeking but hadn’t thought about being dishonest yet.
But in exchange for a smidge of security, what you gain is that new clients can’t read any DM you received before you started using it, or a buggy client who hasn’t synced the keys lately sending a message that only 2 of your clients can read but not the one you’re using right now. Or a phone falling into a toilet and effectively taking all your DMs with it because either there was no UI to back up your keys, or there was one but you didn’t use it because no one ever uses it, or there is a UI to backup the keys but no UI to import them on the next client, etc.
indeed, difficult problems abound - but signal or briar style tradeoffs may be acceptable to those looking to make use of encrypted DM type comms.
this comment by @yote_zip@pawb.social in the thread points to at least one early consideration on the issue.
anyone who cares (as you do) knows that e2ee is hard as hell to implement properly, especially when its user facing. lots of traps at every step, but there are possible paths if we define what we want to achieve and make that scope crystal clear to the user. improper / mistaken tool use is often much worse than no tool at all. federation makes tool selection all the more important.
as for me, fediverse e2ee would be an initial channel to establish connections that may lead to other, more suitable channels. confirmed identity of internet strangers (beyond initial key exchange) in this particular venue is less important to me than the ability to pass a few ephemeral, secure messages. in my world, who I send my grandmother’s super secret meat sauce recipe to is slightly less important than putting clear text on the wire or into instance storage for anyone to potentially see… forever. everyone has their own requirements and its unlikely that fedi e2ee will satisfy them all.
as an abstract thought… I have not seen a technical reason prohibiting federated e2e encrypted messages at some point in the future. so, when development can shift immediate focus from the “must-haves” and toward the “nice-to-haves”, we may well get secure, private, on-network DMs.
I think the normal issue prohibiting e2e encrypted messages being actually good is that end to end encryption requires keys, and keys require verification, and verification requires a trusted outside channel.
As it stands I would want a secure line to some random user I don’t know anything about, so I need a key. Where do I get a user’s key? I ask the same untrusted admin of their lemmy instance for it and they give it to me. How do I validate this key is actually this user’s? I don’t, I just trust the key the admin gave me. Then I encrypt my message and send it over.
So it protects against an honest instance being attacked later. Or against a shortsighted admin who might feel a little like peeking but hadn’t thought about being dishonest yet.
But in exchange for a smidge of security, what you gain is that new clients can’t read any DM you received before you started using it, or a buggy client who hasn’t synced the keys lately sending a message that only 2 of your clients can read but not the one you’re using right now. Or a phone falling into a toilet and effectively taking all your DMs with it because either there was no UI to back up your keys, or there was one but you didn’t use it because no one ever uses it, or there is a UI to backup the keys but no UI to import them on the next client, etc.
indeed, difficult problems abound - but signal or briar style tradeoffs may be acceptable to those looking to make use of encrypted DM type comms.
this comment by @yote_zip@pawb.social in the thread points to at least one early consideration on the issue.
anyone who cares (as you do) knows that e2ee is hard as hell to implement properly, especially when its user facing. lots of traps at every step, but there are possible paths if we define what we want to achieve and make that scope crystal clear to the user. improper / mistaken tool use is often much worse than no tool at all. federation makes tool selection all the more important.
as for me, fediverse e2ee would be an initial channel to establish connections that may lead to other, more suitable channels. confirmed identity of internet strangers (beyond initial key exchange) in this particular venue is less important to me than the ability to pass a few ephemeral, secure messages. in my world, who I send my grandmother’s super secret meat sauce recipe to is slightly less important than putting clear text on the wire or into instance storage for anyone to potentially see… forever. everyone has their own requirements and its unlikely that fedi e2ee will satisfy them all.
I know that soatok made a proposal for this a while ago, but I don’t know if it went anywhere.
thanks for this link! i had not seen it before.