#mastondon Friends!
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#mastondon Friends!
There is a TON of improvements we could make to Private Mentions (often called DMs on other platforms) e.g.
* getting them out of the public timeline
* Having a stronger notification tied to the Private Mention tab
* (amount other things)But here is my MAIN question: How critical is it that these message are encrypted? I'm not against encryption! It's just complex and will take time. If we were to make some UX changes as a first pass WITHOUT encryption would you be OK with that (at least for now?)
If you MUST have encryption, that's fine, please do me the favor of replying explaining why you need it.
@scottjenson My take (which seems to fly in the face of the zeitgeist) is that Mastodon is not meant foremost as a private messaging app. It is at its core, an *open, social* microposting platform. There are apps that are radically better suited for private and safe comms, and I am a huge proponent of letting things be true to themselves. When you try to shoehorn stuff into a system not intended to do that stuff, it ends poorly.
So, sure, DMs out of the timeline, but no Signal-like hardening.
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@scottjenson some of these are in the Mastodon roadmap!
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2026/02/our-technical-direction/
@mapache Yes, I know! ;-) I'm not saying no I'm exploring when (as encryption will take longer than UX improvements
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#mastondon Friends!
There is a TON of improvements we could make to Private Mentions (often called DMs on other platforms) e.g.
* getting them out of the public timeline
* Having a stronger notification tied to the Private Mention tab
* (amount other things)But here is my MAIN question: How critical is it that these message are encrypted? I'm not against encryption! It's just complex and will take time. If we were to make some UX changes as a first pass WITHOUT encryption would you be OK with that (at least for now?)
If you MUST have encryption, that's fine, please do me the favor of replying explaining why you need it.
@scottjenson Don't really need encryption just for the DM edge-case. I only need to know where/for who exactly my message will pop up automatically, though.
Suggesting "encryption" exists in mastodon, how can one make sure it is interoperable with ActivityPub AND nobody gets it wrong and falsely assumes encryption is omnipresent, when it is absolutely not.
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Because "private" means "private", on whatever platform.
Platforms have different purposes. I'm not seeking for a Signal replacement, I just want the promise of "private" conversations to be kept. Like I'd expect it from any other platform that is speaking of "private" messages.
Like I expect every car to have functional safety belts.
@katzenberger Fair enough, I'm not arguing against that. It's just that encryption isn't easy and will take a long time. I'm using this as a 'research foil' to understand why people use Signal vs encrypted Mastodon PMs.
I totally get that people just want safety baked into everything, I'm not against that in any way. But it is very hard to do well.
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@scottjenson Don't really need encryption just for the DM edge-case. I only need to know where/for who exactly my message will pop up automatically, though.
Suggesting "encryption" exists in mastodon, how can one make sure it is interoperable with ActivityPub AND nobody gets it wrong and falsely assumes encryption is omnipresent, when it is absolutely not.
@mray Encryption is being explored by a FEP
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undefined andypiper@macaw.social shared this topic
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@katzenberger Fair enough, I'm not arguing against that. It's just that encryption isn't easy and will take a long time. I'm using this as a 'research foil' to understand why people use Signal vs encrypted Mastodon PMs.
I totally get that people just want safety baked into everything, I'm not against that in any way. But it is very hard to do well.
I understand that, and if there is a roadmap that leads to having it, I'm happy with that.
It may also be worth considering a collaboration with those who have the expertise and are working on related ideas for the Fediverse already, like @soatok
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#mastondon Friends!
There is a TON of improvements we could make to Private Mentions (often called DMs on other platforms) e.g.
* getting them out of the public timeline
* Having a stronger notification tied to the Private Mention tab
* (amount other things)But here is my MAIN question: How critical is it that these message are encrypted? I'm not against encryption! It's just complex and will take time. If we were to make some UX changes as a first pass WITHOUT encryption would you be OK with that (at least for now?)
If you MUST have encryption, that's fine, please do me the favor of replying explaining why you need it.
@scottjenson Not critical, as I wouldn’t expect it because of the current implementation.
If a future iteration of PMs would change that implicit feeling, it might as well be a good idea to communicate it explicitly in the UI, e.g. at the beginning of a new conversation. Basically the opposite of what WhatsApp does (see screenshot).
Also, if encryption means it’ll harder for third party apps, services,… to adopt PMs, then I feel like it’s definitely not worth the effort.
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@mray Encryption is being explored by a FEP
@scottjenson Interesting, seeing how other protocols got burned by adding encryption as an afterthought (XMPP, MAIL) I think we are still very very far away from having something comprehensive, reliable and usable. Unless that's a reality I'd shy away from promoting it unnecessarily loud. 🤷♂️
Encryption rocks though. I hope that FEP has lots of traction.
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@scottjenson My take (which seems to fly in the face of the zeitgeist) is that Mastodon is not meant foremost as a private messaging app. It is at its core, an *open, social* microposting platform. There are apps that are radically better suited for private and safe comms, and I am a huge proponent of letting things be true to themselves. When you try to shoehorn stuff into a system not intended to do that stuff, it ends poorly.
So, sure, DMs out of the timeline, but no Signal-like hardening.
@octothorpe Thank you! To be clear, I'm not against adding encryption to Mastodon but it would be rather different than what you get with Signal. Here is a simple example. Many people are quite public with their real name here on mastodon, that makes sense. But if you REALLY wanted to use an encrypted message you ikely wouldn't want to use your public name. So in many ways, encrypted messages by you very little (well,in some situations)
That's kind of my point, I don't think people really see the FULL JOURNEY necessary for encryption.
However, many have said "I just don't want to have to trust my admin. I just need it for privacy" and you know, that's a perfectly good reason and to be fair, has NOTHING to do with competing with Signal.
That's all I'm trying to do here, understand how and why it would be used.
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@earth2marsh I'm not sure I follow, can you explain this default posture a bit more and what you'd like to see a bit more?
@scottjenson for sure! I mean that when I'm writing a post, I have control over the audience. IIUC, that's a kind of control over the group of people who might see it in their timeline. It is open-ended, so for example if I shared something with followers, and then I got a new follower later, I could expect they could see it.
OTOH, a message I addressed to a specific user feels more like I'm saying this is for that user only and forever. If that message were encrypted, then it would also be private, as I could expect that even a server admin couldn't read it.
(nb: I've made a bunch of assumptions based on how I think the system works, so some of my points may be due to a flawed mental model!)
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@scottjenson @jarango it feels like there is an overlap between microblogging and private messages.
Sometimes the microblog topic opens up a conversation that you would like to follow up in private.
At the moment you need to switch service which adds friction.
But I get your point in not wanting to build another messaging app when there are good ones like Jami.net, Signal, XMPP, etc.
Have you thought about linking messaging accounts to reduce friction?
@themipper @scottjenson we've been through this before. In the early days, Twitter DMs were specified by typing `d username` and then the text. As you may imagine, this led to several spectacular privacy fails.
IMO we know enough at this point to say private messages should be completely separate from the public timeline. They are different contexts that should be kept separate because the consequences of a mix up could be disastrous.
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#mastondon Friends!
There is a TON of improvements we could make to Private Mentions (often called DMs on other platforms) e.g.
* getting them out of the public timeline
* Having a stronger notification tied to the Private Mention tab
* (amount other things)But here is my MAIN question: How critical is it that these message are encrypted? I'm not against encryption! It's just complex and will take time. If we were to make some UX changes as a first pass WITHOUT encryption would you be OK with that (at least for now?)
If you MUST have encryption, that's fine, please do me the favor of replying explaining why you need it.
@scottjenson Adding a vote for encryption first. For the simple reason that “personal message" is associated with a modicum of privacy. And the current Mastodon implementation does not provide much privacy at all for personal messages. As welcome as UX changes are, they would not change the underlying architectural issue, and might even increase the _appearance_ of those messages providing any actual meaningful privacy.
Let me know if you find that explanation needs more details. 😉
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@scottjenson Interesting, seeing how other protocols got burned by adding encryption as an afterthought (XMPP, MAIL) I think we are still very very far away from having something comprehensive, reliable and usable. Unless that's a reality I'd shy away from promoting it unnecessarily loud. 🤷♂️
Encryption rocks though. I hope that FEP has lots of traction.
@mray But now you know why I'm asking. There is lots of energy around encryption but it's a very tricky thing to be done right. My point was simply that we start with some simple UX improvements and not wait for the encryption (given we already have private messages)
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@scottjenson Adding a vote for encryption first. For the simple reason that “personal message" is associated with a modicum of privacy. And the current Mastodon implementation does not provide much privacy at all for personal messages. As welcome as UX changes are, they would not change the underlying architectural issue, and might even increase the _appearance_ of those messages providing any actual meaningful privacy.
Let me know if you find that explanation needs more details. 😉
@jochenwolters That's a very clear explanation thank you. I don't think many apprecaite just how hard it is to add encryption properly and it's like going to take a while. As we already have PMs in the product and improving them would be very helpful, it seems like we shouldn't wait.
Part of why I'm asking is that here are MANY ways to use PMs, many of which do not require encryption at all. Of course it would be very nice to have. But I just want to call out, even with encryption, you likely want to be very careful using Mastodon for organizing as your profile and public posts would likely leak a tremendous amount of personal info.
Again, this doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, just that microblogging makes it hard to proprely protect your identity.
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@themipper @scottjenson we've been through this before. In the early days, Twitter DMs were specified by typing `d username` and then the text. As you may imagine, this led to several spectacular privacy fails.
IMO we know enough at this point to say private messages should be completely separate from the public timeline. They are different contexts that should be kept separate because the consequences of a mix up could be disastrous.
@jarango @themipper Now you know why I want to make these changes sooner rather than later!
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@octothorpe Thank you! To be clear, I'm not against adding encryption to Mastodon but it would be rather different than what you get with Signal. Here is a simple example. Many people are quite public with their real name here on mastodon, that makes sense. But if you REALLY wanted to use an encrypted message you ikely wouldn't want to use your public name. So in many ways, encrypted messages by you very little (well,in some situations)
That's kind of my point, I don't think people really see the FULL JOURNEY necessary for encryption.
However, many have said "I just don't want to have to trust my admin. I just need it for privacy" and you know, that's a perfectly good reason and to be fair, has NOTHING to do with competing with Signal.
That's all I'm trying to do here, understand how and why it would be used.
@scottjenson I dig it. And yeah, the complications you implied are probably exactly the same I did (my post char limit is small)… which is why I shorthanded to ‘signal-like’.
But yeah, I get why folks may want it. I think it’s probably best to not encourage that behaviour in the app (because of how easily it could be accidentally borked, ex: public posting passwords). The notion being if you KNOW it’s not encrypted, you’re less likely to send sensitive material.
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@mray But now you know why I'm asking. There is lots of energy around encryption but it's a very tricky thing to be done right. My point was simply that we start with some simple UX improvements and not wait for the encryption (given we already have private messages)
@scottjenson I'm pessimistic up to the point where you have to have to assume it will fail completely. Just as XMPP and MAIL failed.
The only encryption implementation with success were the approaches where the UX can be controlled centrally.
For MAIL there is #autocrypt now, it is astonishing how good it is – but email is still not encypted today.
XMPP/Jabber has OMEMO, but stillt struggles with client adoption and it isn't omnipresent.
Where it worked: #DeltaChat and #Signal both using a central library that can make sure encryption reliably lands at peoples fingertips.
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#mastondon Friends!
There is a TON of improvements we could make to Private Mentions (often called DMs on other platforms) e.g.
* getting them out of the public timeline
* Having a stronger notification tied to the Private Mention tab
* (amount other things)But here is my MAIN question: How critical is it that these message are encrypted? I'm not against encryption! It's just complex and will take time. If we were to make some UX changes as a first pass WITHOUT encryption would you be OK with that (at least for now?)
If you MUST have encryption, that's fine, please do me the favor of replying explaining why you need it.
@scottjenson one huge problem with private mentions is that they actually aren't equivalent to DMs... because if you try to talk about another person and link to their profile, you effectively "mention" them and they can see the message. I don't know of any other DM that works this way and the UX is extremely confusing to users and just wrong IMO.
I think private mentions should be scrapped entirely and reworked as a different AP object type than Note so that they are treated differently.
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@scottjenson I was actually just thinking about why private mentions are even needed when there are other options like email for private and sensitive discussions between folks. I guess I never truly understand why they are needed in a public social network in the first place? Just leftover from Twitter precedent?
Private replies can be nice if you have something to say in context which you don't want to share super broadly
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@scottjenson one huge problem with private mentions is that they actually aren't equivalent to DMs... because if you try to talk about another person and link to their profile, you effectively "mention" them and they can see the message. I don't know of any other DM that works this way and the UX is extremely confusing to users and just wrong IMO.
I think private mentions should be scrapped entirely and reworked as a different AP object type than Note so that they are treated differently.
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