@benpate I'm wondering what the advantage of e2ee private messages on Mastodon is when we have Signal, Matrix and other robust encrypted messaging tools that you could invite a friend to if you want to have a private conversation.

Is anyone worried about this creating moderation issues?

Generally I'm in favor of privacy and security, but I'm just not sure what the value of this feature is on Mastodon. Maybe you or others can provide your perspective on this.

@earth_walker

I don’t have all the answers, but I believe there’s a network effect at work.

Signal is fantastic. I use it for lots of things. But it’s “yet another” place to go.

But the Fediverse is my primary place to talk with people (like you)

If you and I could have a truly private follow-on discussion without switching networks, it would be a win for the Fediverse.

@benpate @earth_walker

Signal also has 50 employees and money in the bank to pay the lawyers.

@jaz @benpate @earth_walker Signal is also a centralized service controlled by a very few people with the ability to be blocked and cut off easily.

I don't see E2EE fedi as competition for Signal, it's just a way to ensure comms are at least somewhat protected. Is there something complex about the implementation that makes you feel you are operating a E2EE service beyond the fact that Masto servers already do that via TLS?

@reflex @benpate @earth_walker

I'm not trying to be snide here, I mean this very literally.

I don't know what I don't know about operating an E2EE, patio, porn, or recycling business. All I know is they are all regulated, require licensing, insurance, have wildly different requirements in different jurisdictions.

I've done the work for operating social media services.

I have no intention of doing the work for any of the other services listed.

(Export controls come to mind though.)

@jaz @benpate @earth_walker I understand you do not know, but my point is if you are operating a mastodon instance, and you are connecting users via https, you are already operating a E2EE service. That is what https is (via TLS, used to be SSL). You do not need to know more to have your messaging be E2EE within the instance unless they have done something very wrong with the masto instance.

It's an international standard, the concerns you have can be raised, but likely are not valid.