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Aus.Social Admin

I meant snapchat but I kind of wish I didn't... people seem to dislike it

but I just meant, that's the place that people use for the sexts.

in reply to Aus.Social Admin

also all 7000+ twitter employees can see dm’s there so this is objectively way better
in reply to jay 🌺

Oh wow, ok. There are things to say about Twitter's external actions, but I've been assuming the insides were running like a normal decade-and-a-half-old resource-rich company.

Thanks for the correction, @jay 🌺 and @silverwizard .

in reply to dexiheart is anti-cop

@dexiheart is anti-cop @Aus.Social Admin I've been wondering about that. How can you possibly encrypt messages in such a way that admins with full access cannot access them? It would mean you can't store private keys on the server; every client you use to access it (mobile app, every browser) would need a copy of your private key. Or it's encrypted with your password, but then if you lose your password, you lose all your messages too.
in reply to Martijn Vos

But also - if the admin wants to be evil, why would they even deploy the version that hides your msssages
in reply to Martijn Vos

@Martijn Vos @Aus.Social Admin @dexiheart is anti-cop it could in theory be done with a client, as that could store your keys on your own device (and you could in theory check that the client isn't doing anything harmful with those keys), but then only people who use mastodon through a compatible client could read those.

Or more easily one can use the DM/PMs on mastodon to exchange contact IDs for some system that is designed for private communications rather than mostly public ones and already provides cryptography (and a client/app to do in on the user's side).

in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla''

Yes, if people only used one browser/client, which is kinda not the social network model
in reply to Aus.Social Admin

Correct me if I'm wrong in my layperson's understanding, but isn't the issue with the privacy of ActivityPub messages fairly analogous to the privacy of unencrypted email? That is, in the process of routing a message to its intended destination, every server along its path will download a copy?

I'm not asking to imply "and therefore we shouldn't strive for more," I'm just wondering if the issues are analogous.

in reply to Spencer

Well, slightly different, only the instances storing the DMs can read them, but it's a storage issue
in reply to Spencer

@Spencer @Aus.Social Admin It's slightly better than the privacy of unencrypted email, because unencrypted email is sent over the internet unencrypted, whereas ActivityPub messages at least use https.

Personally I think email should be upgraded to a system where every message is encrypted by default. Of course that would require knowing the recipient's public key, which would require a system to distribute those to everybody who has you as a contact, and before you know it, it has turned into a social network. But I think this is the way email has to go.

in reply to Martijn Vos

If you are using a provider without TLS I don't know what to tell you
in reply to Aus.Social Admin

reminds me of when Gaben responded to accusations that Steam can snoop and see what people do on their computer with "hell no I don't want to see your porn".