Gregory's Serversup. is an open source encrypted fediverse instant messenger, similar to whatsapp, made by pixelfed.
The beta will be launching later this month, and btw most fediverse accounts will work, not just Pixelfed 😉
 179 comments
  @fishidwardrobe I don't think there's any requirement for phone numbers in the #Signal Protocol. They all sound similar but the Signal Protocol (the technical spec; also used by WhatsApp), The Signal Foundation (the non-profit entity behind Signal), and Signal (the messaging service) are all different things. @fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk @dansup@mastodon.social @Yuvalne@433.world no, my guess is that it'll use the encryption standards provided by libsignal without using signal's services.  Please consider MLS, end-to-end encryption protocol standardized by IETF: https://blog.phnx.im/rfc-9420-mls/ Matrix and some other messengers are going to adopt it, so there's a possibility that we can interoperate with them in the future. media description:    @steve You’re welcome and I wasn’t just some random person butting in. I’ve migrated my account. For some reason the migration has gone poorly @steve correct. I know for some users like myself with vision sensitivity either or can be too much. With Twitter I regularly used dim mode and it was the easiest on my eyes no matter the time of day. @dameoutlaw Okay, I’ll add it do the list along with some other ideas I have 😊 The mobile app is written in React Native, and the backend in async PHP (surprisingly high perf). Both client and server code will be open sourced when we release the beta, and we'll target F-Droid support and TestFlight! I will maintain the primary sup. server, but you will be able to run your own, and connect from the app easily!  @dansup I love your ideas and concepts but I have to admit I’m very sad to hear that the iOS version will be written in react native and not swift ui. I really wanted to like pixelfed, but the app feels very out of place on iOS and janky not because it’s not a well made app (it is) but it feels very “androidy” on iOS which will not bode well for adoption, and lead me to delete it and go back to browsing pixelfed via Mona app instead. @dansup I never said it wasnt smooth, it very much is! Just feels out of place and not very native on iOS. Until a swift ui alternative comes out, I think signal app is still the best option on iOS for messaging @piratenpanda @dansup For example, the tab bar is opaque and doesn’t have the classic swift ui blur. The animations for opening posts and swiping to go back doesn’t have the same weight and physics you expect from iOS. When you click the profile tab, there’s an awkward back button in the top left that takes you back to the feed tab, which is very weird. The list goes on, the design language is at home on iOS but the experience feels like a website not an app made by Apple. @piratenpanda @dansup And honestly, if the app feels very “iOSy” on android that’s a problem too! The apps should feel native and at home on their relative platforms, not somewhere in the middle with one foot in each door @bowreality @dansup Kinda! I’m still trying to figure it out, I can see when people repost pixelfed posts to their Mastadon, and you can add pixelfed communities to your community tab although pixelfed.social doesn’t work because it says it requires a logged in account. Then if you try and log in with a pixelfed.social account it gets most of the way past the login screen and then errors. It seems like there’s a missing link somewhere that should be easy to figure out   @dansup I mean tbf, modern PHP uses JIT so I'm not surprised it goes BRRRRRRRRR.   @steely_glint @dansup @ariadne I'm assuming that's Messaging Layer Security? https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9420.html An RFC would be a big step up from piecing things together from code, and white papers from both Signal and Whatsapp(!), which was my experience getting libsignal working. That was back in 2018, though, so maybe the docs are better now. A federated secure messaging client is a boss idea! @steely_glint @dansup @ariadne That does remind me though, I wonder what the Precursor https://betrusted.io/ is using for messaging (that's all Rust). *checks* Seems they're running at Matrix first, but a future Fediverse secure messaging client for that would be nice @steely_glint @dansup @ariadne Dan has hard work ahead, but if this reaches the point where Fediverse DM's across platforms default to E2EE encryption, that would be *huge*! Looking forward to the rollout and successful audits. @dansup hook me up with the opportunity to test. Maybe Thunderbird should support Sup. @ryanleesipes We already support Matrix which is standardized, open, decentralized and encrypted. @dansup "instant messenger" "made by pixelfed" "encrypted fediverse" WhatsApp on my phone is gonna disappear and I ain't going to miss the family group
  @dansup @crw Assuming that you're actually working with arbitrary APub accounts and not just using them as an auth provider, this is probably the most interesting part of this, especially wrt identifying devices (for the Signal protocol) and reducing delay Mostly because, IMO, without this, there would be little benefit over speaking one of the two established federated chat protocols. @dansup Glad to see the pixelfed team is working hard on improving the fediverse by delivering on long awaited features ! @dansup@mastodon.social Will it be compatible with either matrix or xmpp? If not, will it be compatible with any other E2EE messaging system? @dansup The idea is great, but why a new project? With MLS becoming a thing, supposed to support federation and being better in every way than the signal protocol, while the matrix protocol is an option as well. I've never heard that activityPub is famous for encryption and all the fediverse apps I know support direct (instand?) messaging, but never end to end encrypted. I'm just concerned at this point that instead of everybody being able to communicate with everybody, everybody makes their own protocol, that supports federation and we end up as we are now, you need 5 different apps, they all support federation but one matrix, one activitypub, one mls and so on...  @mrrulf There’s that meme. ‘There are 11 competing protocols, we should make a standard’ Six months later ‘There are 12 competing protocols’. We’ve already seen this happen with fediverse directories and block lists. It’s concerning that we might see the same thing with messengers. By all means make a client but do we really need another standard.  @dansup This is cool, and I can't wait to test it, but unless it can magically federate with WhatsApp/iMessage/etc. or you manage to convince my aunts and uncles to switch, it's just another app in a crowded space that missed the network effect by about 10 years. I think that at this point the only viable solution to #opensource #messaging is to lobby the EU so that it forces the big players to #federate.  @Jackthelad93 @dansup You'd have to be on the same platform, as WhatsApp doesn't federate (i.e. talk to other apps).  @rhrt but do we really need another IM? There’s SimpleX which is cool and secure, and open source to where you can run your own servers too. But I’ll still check out sup. @dansup I'm very intrigued by this app.. @dansup @dansup@mastodon.social I imagine this will be a customized Signal server backend with authentication using a fediverse account instead of a phone number. How will it federate? Can you set up a crowdfunding site for interested folks like me to chip in to pay for a third-party security review / audit? This sounds amazing, but some extra eyes on the implementation to sign off on its robustness would be appreciated before I start relying on its E2EE.  @dansup@mastodon.social if it is feasible and not very hard, some people would enjoy it, if it has android api 16 (android 4) support. i know some with older phones. but whatever. what does it do? creates contact list from contacts and sends private messages via activity pub? if other person has no such messenger, but has mastodon, will they receive the message?   @dansup It would be super helpful if Pixelfed Implemented the ability to edit posts, before losing focus on entirely new projects.  @dansup As someone who always wants to test new encrypted messaging platforms (weird hobby, I know..) this is exciting to me.    @dansup the fediverse needs encrypted message, this will definitely help the ecosystem overall. @dansup @KatSteelwing oooh! Is the protocol going to be open for other apps to implement? This could be a huge game changer for chat on fedi!  @dansup Oh wow. The name alone is absolutely brilliant, for so many reasons. And a fabulous concept in general. Thank you! Keep up the fantastic work!   It looks like precisely the decentralised, ciphered, phone-number-free alternative to WhatsApp etc, I'm looking forward to it !   @dansup alt text  It would be great if this messenger is then integrated into Mastodon, instead of the default private messages, which are unencrypted and in the format of regular posts, plain text... |
@dansup will it use the Signal protocol?