4 ms·

How is this different from let's say email? It's in the specs what servers should do if it receives a message. If someone sends a message addressed to just the

How is this different from let's say email? It's in the specs what servers should do if it receives a message. If someone sends a message addressed to just these people the server then delivers it to just these people? Of course if you send something from foo@gmail.com to bar@yahoo.com the server at yahoo.com decides who gets it, hopefully just bar. In fact email analogy in my mind is most apt and easiest to explain, including the fact that it's not E2E encrypted. It's totally up to servers who gets your messages when you send them.

andrewaylett 4y ago
A better ideal might be Matrix -- consider a private E2E room, with all your recipients in it, locked down so only you can post messages to it. Stuff you post will only be visible to the set of users you want it to be visible to. Writing software to present those posts in a suitable UI is left as an exercise to the reader. And it's a bit late to start now, but I really wish we'd been able to start our fediverse journey with something that's at least supposed to be secure, then opened up the stuff that's intended be open.
- Ciantic 4y ago
  Absolutely, I support E2E and signatures. It's funny that there is nothing new since GPG, it is decentralized identity with E2E encryption and verifiable signatures. But original poster was questioning the delivery mechanism. Given that there is no E2E, it already works as efficiently as it can with pub/sub. I don't want to start discussing what Fediverse should be, but I have had this discussion in past, few points: - ActivityPub has two signatures: HTTP signatures, which are ephemeral, and more persistent JSON-LD object signatures. They are contentious. Some servers disable JSON-LD object signatures, because they allow to proof cryptographically that someone posted something, thus deleted posts become "liability". - E2E encryption will have similar ramifications, because not all servers agree that crypto be used. Currently only way to do "privacy" is to deliver messages to just the people you want, and hope servers won't send them to third parties, like in email. That's what Mastodon does.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> How is this different from let's say email? E-mail has decent brand separation between the protocol and providers. People don’t talk about joining .social, they talk about Mastodon.
- drusepth 4y ago
  People also talk about "sending email", not "sending gmail". Brand separation naturally emerges over time.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > People also talk about "sending email", not "sending gmail". Brand separation naturally emerges over time Sure. But users are cognizant they're using Gmail. And when something goes wrong, they're halfway decent at attributing it to their or the recipient's provider. Mastodon servers are eclipsed by Mastodon per se. It's closer to AOL than e-mail.

andrewaylett 4y ago

A better ideal might be Matrix -- consider a private E2E room, with all your recipients in it, locked down so only you can post messages to it. Stuff you post will only be visible to the set of users you want it to be visible to. Writing software to present those posts in a suitable UI is left as an exercise to the reader. And it's a bit late to start now, but I really wish we'd been able to start our fediverse journey with something that's at least supposed to be secure, then opened up the stuff that's intended be open.

Ciantic 4y ago
Absolutely, I support E2E and signatures. It's funny that there is nothing new since GPG, it is decentralized identity with E2E encryption and verifiable signatures. But original poster was questioning the delivery mechanism. Given that there is no E2E, it already works as efficiently as it can with pub/sub. I don't want to start discussing what Fediverse should be, but I have had this discussion in past, few points: - ActivityPub has two signatures: HTTP signatures, which are ephemeral, and more persistent JSON-LD object signatures. They are contentious. Some servers disable JSON-LD object signatures, because they allow to proof cryptographically that someone posted something, thus deleted posts become "liability". - E2E encryption will have similar ramifications, because not all servers agree that crypto be used. Currently only way to do "privacy" is to deliver messages to just the people you want, and hope servers won't send them to third parties, like in email. That's what Mastodon does.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> How is this different from let's say email? E-mail has decent brand separation between the protocol and providers. People don’t talk about joining .social, they talk about Mastodon.

drusepth 4y ago
People also talk about "sending email", not "sending gmail". Brand separation naturally emerges over time.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > People also talk about "sending email", not "sending gmail". Brand separation naturally emerges over time Sure. But users are cognizant they're using Gmail. And when something goes wrong, they're halfway decent at attributing it to their or the recipient's provider. Mastodon servers are eclipsed by Mastodon per se. It's closer to AOL than e-mail.