@neil I would personally have loved a fediverse in...

@neil I would personally have loved a fediverse in which *everything* is e2e encrypted.
Alas, cryptography isn't easy, and it is scary enough to programmers that it would have seriously impacted adoption and development of new fedi-related software.

Maybe the next generation of federated protocol will work that way ^^

Like 1 Jul 2023 at 5:44 | Wall-to-wall | Open on mastodon.chaosfield.at

11 comments

Neil Brown

@dequbed

> I would personally have loved a fediverse in which *everything* is e2e encrypted.

I am interested in how you’d see that working:

- I presume it would mean eliminating “open follow” accounts (like mine), and requiring people to approve follow requests, as otherwise any adversary could follow and obtain access to (future) posts. But…

- if A posts something and B boosts it, C, who follows B but not A, could see it? Does e2ee add anything?

1 Jul 2023 at 5:49 | Open on mastodon.neilzone.co.uk

nadja

@neil I don't think open follow accounts like your have the threat model of trying to prevent randos from seeing your posts. To you it would mostly add enforced encryption at rest.

For public/unlisted it would mostly add enforced encryption at rest, but follower-only posts can't be boosted. And it protects those against bad actor servers that e.g. index or publicize them.

1 Jul 2023 at 5:55 | Open on mastodon.chaosfield.at

Neil Brown

@dequbed

I can see how it would work in the context of follower-only posts from restricted follow accounts. Absolutely.

And, just in case, I didn’t mean to be dismissive of those who choose or need to engage in that way - not at all.

In other, more public, contexts, I am less sure it would work at all!

1 Jul 2023 at 5:59 | Open on mastodon.neilzone.co.uk

nadja

@neil oh no worries, I didn't read you as dismissive. Just as honestly curious about a topic that's outside of your domain of expertise, and I can apprechiate that :blobcatcomfy:

1 Jul 2023 at 6:03 | Open on mastodon.chaosfield.at

Neil Brown

@dequbed Thank you! I love how I can engage with actual experts on so many things :)

1 Jul 2023 at 6:04 | Open on mastodon.neilzone.co.uk

Dragon

@neil @dequbed I can’t see how it would work for public posts.

Or why you’d even need to encrypt those as given they’re meant to be public.

1 Jul 2023 at 11:20 | Open on toast.dragon2611.net

Joël de Bruijn

@neil @dequbed
Just an adjacent thought:
With CryptPad I see the irony of being e2ee without identification/authentication users.
Super encrypted meanwhile anyone with a link can collaborate.

1 Jul 2023 at 5:57 | Open on t.joeldebruijn.nl

Lien Rag

@dequbed

I believe that's exactly what Spritely/Goblin is trying to do with Ocaps (but I'm just lurking at their work, I don't really understand it).

@neil

1 Jul 2023 at 9:01 | Open on mastodon.tedomum.net

nadja

@lienrag @neil AIUI Spritely is more about establishing a capability-based platform/network than building an e2ee social network. Caps are not necessarily cryptography-based and skimming https://spritely.institute/static/papers/spritely-core.html don't seem to be in this case either. Spritely appears to be more about classical network security.

But my experience with capabilities is at this point good many years old back with E and experiments in Erlang. Maybe @cwebber wants to chime in, she obviously knows this problem domain ^^

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1 Jul 2023 at 11:06 | Open on mastodon.chaosfield.at

EdenDestroyer (He/Him)

@dequbed @neil there was one matrix project in work that did this. i dont remember the name sadly. i suppose it could be found on the matrix.org page

1 Jul 2023 at 11:44 | Open on solarpunk.moe

Sören

@dequbed @neil

> in which *everything* is e2e encrypted.

You would have to exchange keys between every combination of author/reader, and probably per-device or even per-app. The computational impact and restrictions (no guests, for example) would trump the benefits. And at that scale, can you really trust everyone in the first place?

E2EE makes sense for private conversations and small group chats.

1 Jul 2023 at 12:12 | Open on norden.social