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I would go a step further: this is not secure. Forward secrecy and metadata privacy are table stakes in any modern secure messaging design, and Delta Chat has n

I would go a step further: this is not secure. Forward secrecy and metadata privacy are table stakes in any modern secure messaging design, and Delta Chat has neither.

em-bee 1y ago
deltachat devs are working on forward secrecy. and as for metadata, as long as the messages are sent from my personal email server to the destinations email server using a TLS connection, the metadata is accessible only on those two servers. sure, if i use gmail then google has my social graph. but so do whatsapp and telegram and others. yes, more private options exist, but for example in one group of friends right now the choice now is between whatsapp and deltachat. whatsapp because most people in the group already use it. deltachat because most people already have email. signal or matrix are not under consideration.
- woodruffw 1y ago
  > deltachat devs are working on forward secrecy That’s great, but I’m not holding my breath. PGP isn’t architecturally well-equipped to provide forward secrecy. In the mean time, I think it’s borderline negligent to put this in the category of secure messaging; the world’s expectations for security baselines have moved on beyond the mid-2000s. (My reference point here is Keybase, which built a very user-friendly and misuse-resistant encrypted chat on top of PGP in the mid-2010s. They couldn’t get to forward secrecy either with PGP as their substrate.) > as for metadata, as long as the messages are sent from my personal email server to the destinations email server using a TLS connection, the metadata is accessible only on those two servers. To the best of my knowledge, MTA-STS adoption rates are still abysmal[1]. It’s a move in the right direction, but this kind of shambolic jigsaw approach to communication security isn’t appropriate in 2025. Sensitive messages should go over protocols designed to carry them. [1]: https://www.uriports.com/blog/mta-sts-survey-update-2025/ https://www.uriports.com/blog/mta-sts-survey-update-2025/
  - em-bee 1y ago
    PGP isn’t architecturally well-equipped to provide forward secrecy i have no insight into the development, but i suppose that swapping out PGP for something entirely different should technically be possible. they did develop a peer to peer protocol with forward security for real-time messages that sidesteps SMTP entirely. seems a bit wierd given the premise, but the devs are at least not limiting themselves to SMTP and PGP.
    - woodruffw 1y ago
      > but i suppose that swapping out PGP for something entirely different should technically be possible. That would probably be good, but email is still a terrible substrate for secure messaging. Clear metadata is security poison; you want as little of it revealed to participant servers as possible. > they did develop a peer to peer protocol with forward security for real-time messages that sidesteps SMTP entirely. That’s great, but in that case: what’s the value proposition relative to Signal or even Matrix?
      - em-bee 1y ago
        the peer to peer protocol at this point is only for realtime communication at which both parties have to be present. like IRC, those messages are not saved. it does not replace regular messaging which is stored. i was merely trying to point out that the developers are capable of thinking outside of the box that they started from and that deltachat may develop in a different direction. as someone else stated, deltachat's value is that it is able to reuse existing infrastructure and does not require (but allow) a new set of servers to be able to work.
        woodruffw 1y ago
        > i was merely trying to point out that the developers are capable of thinking outside of the box that they started from and that deltachat may develop in a different direction. I mean this kindly: I wish they would think a little bit more inside the box, and converge onto a proven design. (It’s worth noting that your “existing infrastructure” argument is exactly why Signal uses phone numbers. Using existing infrastructure is a great idea, so long as it doesn’t compromise the security expectations any reasonable user has. That isn’t currently true for Delta Chat.)
repeekad 1y ago
Today I learned: table stakes is borrowed from poker referring to the minimum size bet needed to participate in a hand, I’ve heard it so many times
- jeremyjh 1y ago
  That is not correct. Table stakes are not a "bet size", they are the minimum you have to bring to have a seat at the table. For example you might have to bring $300 to sit a table where the minimum bet size (big blind) is $5. You only have to bet the blinds 2 out of 10 hands (or more, if short-handed), which would be much smaller.
  - post_below 1y ago
    As a side note, despite its popularity, Texas hold'em is just one type of poker game. In most poker games (5 draw, 7 stud, etc..) you ante every hand.
    - tialaramex 1y ago
      Because poker variants are so popular basically everything varies, but yes there's often an ante (a forced bet every player makes each round), and that's even present in some Hold 'Em structures.
- 1659447091 1y ago
  The first N times I came across someone use "table stakes", I dyslexically read it as "table steaks". Still came to the same meaning because, yeah -- I get it -- I too would only be coming over for dinner if there are steaks at the table.
klabb3 1y ago
> Forward secrecy and metadata privacy are table stakes in any modern secure messaging design I think this is counter-productive, limiting the adoption of meaningful security improvements. The engineering and UX implications of PFS and full metadata encryption (in particular social graphs) are severe. Not even signal has that, and they are above and beyond for a mass consumer product. From the physical world, it’s like saying that having addresses on the letter is the same as the government opening and scanning the contents of every letter. Of course I don’t like the indiscriminate metadata collection, but there are worse things. If you’re a spook or dissident, by all means, take extra precautions. You’re gonna need to anyway, in many more disruptive ways than your messaging app. Personally I just want to share shitposts with friends and speak freely without second guessing if I’m gonna be profiled by a data broker, or someone is gonna scan and store the pictures I send forever. Keep in mind that the status quo (Gmail, DM on social media) is incredibly bad.
- woodruffw 1y ago
  I don’t understand how asking for things that are bog-standard is somehow counter-productive. I think the really counter-productive thing here is flogging the dead horse of encrypted email; ordinary people deserve better than that. > Not even signal has that, and they are above and beyond for a mass consumer product What parts of this do you think are missing from Signal? Signal has had PFS for as long as it’s been called Signal, and has famously minuscule metadata on users.
  - jjav 1y ago
    > famously minuscule metadata Famously minuscule? They demand a phone number, which blows up any possible anonymity story.
    - balamatom 1y ago
      Compare with Telegram which also expects to correlate the number to an IMEI
  - klabb3 1y ago
heavyset_go 1y ago
I agree from that perspective.
lima 1y ago
Source: https://delta.chat/en/help#pfs https://delta.chat/en/help#pfs It's basically GPG with better UX.
- newsclues 1y ago
  PGP?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
    GPG is gnu privacy guard, it's an open source implementation of the same ideas that are PGP (pretty good privacy).
  - singpolyma3 1y ago
    Specifically we're supposed to call it OpenPGP these days
    - 47282847 1y ago
      There is PGP, OpenPGP, and GnuPG, and they’re all parts of a shared ecosystem but not the same. They never were, so it’s not like anything changed over time about this.

I would go a step further: this is not secure. Forward secrecy and metadata privacy are table stakes in any modern secure messaging design, and Delta Chat has neither.

em-bee 1y ago

deltachat devs are working on forward secrecy. and as for metadata, as long as the messages are sent from my personal email server to the destinations email server using a TLS connection, the metadata is accessible only on those two servers. sure, if i use gmail then google has my social graph. but so do whatsapp and telegram and others. yes, more private options exist, but for example in one group of friends right now the choice now is between whatsapp and deltachat. whatsapp because most people in the group already use it. deltachat because most people already have email. signal or matrix are not under consideration.

woodruffw 1y ago
> deltachat devs are working on forward secrecy That’s great, but I’m not holding my breath. PGP isn’t architecturally well-equipped to provide forward secrecy. In the mean time, I think it’s borderline negligent to put this in the category of secure messaging; the world’s expectations for security baselines have moved on beyond the mid-2000s. (My reference point here is Keybase, which built a very user-friendly and misuse-resistant encrypted chat on top of PGP in the mid-2010s. They couldn’t get to forward secrecy either with PGP as their substrate.) > as for metadata, as long as the messages are sent from my personal email server to the destinations email server using a TLS connection, the metadata is accessible only on those two servers. To the best of my knowledge, MTA-STS adoption rates are still abysmal[1]. It’s a move in the right direction, but this kind of shambolic jigsaw approach to communication security isn’t appropriate in 2025. Sensitive messages should go over protocols designed to carry them. [1]: https://www.uriports.com/blog/mta-sts-survey-update-2025/ https://www.uriports.com/blog/mta-sts-survey-update-2025/
- em-bee 1y ago
  PGP isn’t architecturally well-equipped to provide forward secrecy i have no insight into the development, but i suppose that swapping out PGP for something entirely different should technically be possible. they did develop a peer to peer protocol with forward security for real-time messages that sidesteps SMTP entirely. seems a bit wierd given the premise, but the devs are at least not limiting themselves to SMTP and PGP.
  - woodruffw 1y ago
    > but i suppose that swapping out PGP for something entirely different should technically be possible. That would probably be good, but email is still a terrible substrate for secure messaging. Clear metadata is security poison; you want as little of it revealed to participant servers as possible. > they did develop a peer to peer protocol with forward security for real-time messages that sidesteps SMTP entirely. That’s great, but in that case: what’s the value proposition relative to Signal or even Matrix?
    - em-bee 1y ago
      the peer to peer protocol at this point is only for realtime communication at which both parties have to be present. like IRC, those messages are not saved. it does not replace regular messaging which is stored. i was merely trying to point out that the developers are capable of thinking outside of the box that they started from and that deltachat may develop in a different direction. as someone else stated, deltachat's value is that it is able to reuse existing infrastructure and does not require (but allow) a new set of servers to be able to work.
      - woodruffw 1y ago
        > i was merely trying to point out that the developers are capable of thinking outside of the box that they started from and that deltachat may develop in a different direction. I mean this kindly: I wish they would think a little bit more inside the box, and converge onto a proven design. (It’s worth noting that your “existing infrastructure” argument is exactly why Signal uses phone numbers. Using existing infrastructure is a great idea, so long as it doesn’t compromise the security expectations any reasonable user has. That isn’t currently true for Delta Chat.)

repeekad 1y ago

Today I learned: table stakes is borrowed from poker referring to the minimum size bet needed to participate in a hand, I’ve heard it so many times

jeremyjh 1y ago
That is not correct. Table stakes are not a "bet size", they are the minimum you have to bring to have a seat at the table. For example you might have to bring $300 to sit a table where the minimum bet size (big blind) is $5. You only have to bet the blinds 2 out of 10 hands (or more, if short-handed), which would be much smaller.
- post_below 1y ago
  As a side note, despite its popularity, Texas hold'em is just one type of poker game. In most poker games (5 draw, 7 stud, etc..) you ante every hand.
  - tialaramex 1y ago
    Because poker variants are so popular basically everything varies, but yes there's often an ante (a forced bet every player makes each round), and that's even present in some Hold 'Em structures.
1659447091 1y ago
The first N times I came across someone use "table stakes", I dyslexically read it as "table steaks". Still came to the same meaning because, yeah -- I get it -- I too would only be coming over for dinner if there are steaks at the table.

klabb3 1y ago

> Forward secrecy and metadata privacy are table stakes in any modern secure messaging design I think this is counter-productive, limiting the adoption of meaningful security improvements. The engineering and UX implications of PFS and full metadata encryption (in particular social graphs) are severe. Not even signal has that, and they are above and beyond for a mass consumer product. From the physical world, it’s like saying that having addresses on the letter is the same as the government opening and scanning the contents of every letter. Of course I don’t like the indiscriminate metadata collection, but there are worse things. If you’re a spook or dissident, by all means, take extra precautions. You’re gonna need to anyway, in many more disruptive ways than your messaging app. Personally I just want to share shitposts with friends and speak freely without second guessing if I’m gonna be profiled by a data broker, or someone is gonna scan and store the pictures I send forever. Keep in mind that the status quo (Gmail, DM on social media) is incredibly bad.

woodruffw 1y ago
I don’t understand how asking for things that are bog-standard is somehow counter-productive. I think the really counter-productive thing here is flogging the dead horse of encrypted email; ordinary people deserve better than that. > Not even signal has that, and they are above and beyond for a mass consumer product What parts of this do you think are missing from Signal? Signal has had PFS for as long as it’s been called Signal, and has famously minuscule metadata on users.
- jjav 1y ago
  > famously minuscule metadata Famously minuscule? They demand a phone number, which blows up any possible anonymity story.
  - balamatom 1y ago
    Compare with Telegram which also expects to correlate the number to an IMEI
- klabb3 1y ago

heavyset_go 1y ago

I agree from that perspective.

lima 1y ago

Source: https://delta.chat/en/help#pfs https://delta.chat/en/help#pfs It's basically GPG with better UX.

newsclues 1y ago
PGP?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
  GPG is gnu privacy guard, it's an open source implementation of the same ideas that are PGP (pretty good privacy).
- singpolyma3 1y ago
  Specifically we're supposed to call it OpenPGP these days
  - 47282847 1y ago
    There is PGP, OpenPGP, and GnuPG, and they’re all parts of a shared ecosystem but not the same. They never were, so it’s not like anything changed over time about this.