Have you seen this news?

@benroyce @benpate oh thanks for telling me what we all want. SMH.

@Lizette603_23

“Inviolate” is a pretty strong word..

I’d say that this will make it prohibitively expensive for most “people in the middle” of your conversations (like server mods, IT workers, web scrapers, or general looky-loos) to intercept your encrypted messages. MUCH better than what we have now.

There’s always other ways that a well funded or morally unhindered group can break into your stuff.

Relevant comic: https://xkcd.com/538/

@benpate Thanks for opining. I like my word choice, and I like you for answering my question.

@Lizette603_23 notes like this are why I wish Mastodon would let me like things with little hearts and smiles instead of just stars.

I’ll have to put it here instead

️

@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.

@jaz @benpate @earth_walker HTTPS is E2EE between the server (instance) and client (app/browser/etc). It ensures data in transit cannot be intercepted easily. E2EE messaging is the same thing but user to user, essentially keeping the data invisible to the server (instance). Same principle. It's commonly used and typically invisible to the admin.

It does not block screenshots, reporting mechanisms will still be valid.

Again, assuming this implementation does not do something weird.

@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.

@reflex @benpate @earth_walker I believe you may be underestimating my understanding of and experience with internetworking including the network and transport layers, but I'll just say that encryption in transit is not end to end , and the simple fact that I can moderate user-to-user (end to end) content on my service expressly informs that fact.

Let me put it another way, I have no intention of operating an unmoderatable community service.

Sorry. We are talking about a different end. E2EE means encrypting messages from my device all the way through to your device, and not being decrypted by the server in the middle. HTTPs://does not do this, so this message I’m sending to you is readable by the admins of several intermediate servers.

It’s a very different model for communication.

@reflex @jaz @earth_walker

@jaz @benpate @earth_walker To be clear, your line is one that leaves users vulnerable to malicious admins. I am unclear how it hinders moderation since again, screenshots are a thing.

Also referring people to a separate centralized service that cannot be simply moved out of a hostile jurisdiction and is easily blocked is not ideal.

@reflex @benpate @earth_walker malicious admins already exist, and I didn't refer anyone to anything. I have spoken my concern, it stands, I appreciate you may not share it, but I am at a loss as to why you want to disabuse me of it. Let's agree to disagree and move on.

@jaz @benpate @earth_walker Nobody is disabusing you, but your concerns are mostly FUD, like I said we already do those things in other aspects.

Nothing else to say I guess.

@reflex @benpate @earth_walker

Moderation is hard.

Moderation tooling for E2EE is hard.

Plenty of other other people can, should, and will take this on. I will not be one of them.

@jaz @benpate @earth_walker Wow, the guy in charge of #IFTAS thinks it's cool to slander someone like this? Crazy world. For anyone reading this, I never posted this nor would I ever.

@reflex @benpate @earth_walker exactly my point

@jaz @benpate @earth_walker You have some real issues, Jaz. This was inappropriate. I never attacked you or put words in your mouth to make any point.

At the end of the day trust and safety includes safety from instance admins.

All you've done here is demonstrate a failure in leadership.

@reflex @benpate @earth_walker I believe you may be underestimating my understanding of and experience with internetworking including the network and transport layers, but I'll just say that encryption in transit is not end to end , and the simple fact that I can moderate user-to-user (end to end) content on my service expressly informs that fact.

Let me put it another way, I have no intention of operating an unmoderatable community service.