Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike wants to do for AI what he did for messaging - https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/01/signal-creator-moxi...
Private Inference: https://confer.to/blog/2026/01/private-inference/
Confer – End to end encrypted AI chat
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Re: Confer – End to end encrypted AI chat
#2Well, if anyone could do it properly, Moxie certainly has the track record.
Re: Confer – End to end encrypted AI chat
#3Interesting! I wonder a) how much of an issue this addresses, ie how much are people worried about privacy when they use other LLMs? and b) how much of a disadvantage it is for Confer not to be able to read/ train in user data.
Re: Confer – End to end encrypted AI chat
#4Unless I misunderstand, this doesn't seem to address what I consider to be the largest privacy risk: the information you're providing to the LLM itself. Is there even a solution to that problem?
I mean, e2ee is great and welcome, of course. That's a wonderful thing. But I need more.
Re: Confer – End to end encrypted AI chat
#5An interesting take on the AI model. I'm not sure what their business model is like, as collecting training data is the one thing that free AI users "pay" in return for services, but at least this chat model seems honest.
Using remote attestation in the browser to attest the server rather than the client is refreshing.
Using passkeys to encrypt data does limit browser/hardware combinations, though. My Firefox+Bitwarden setup doesn't work with this, unfortunately. Firefox on Android also seems to be broken, but Chrome on Android works well at least.
Re: Confer – End to end encrypted AI chat
#6Get a fun error message on debian 13 with firefox v140:
"This application requires passkey with PRF extension support for secure encryption key storage. Your browser or device doesn't support these advanced features.Please use Chrome 116+, Firefox 139+, or Edge 141+ on a device with platform authentication (Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello, etc.)."
Re: Confer – End to end encrypted AI chat
#7Unless I misunderstand, this doesn't seem to address what I consider to be the largest privacy risk: the information you're providing to the LLM itself. Is there even a solution to that problem? I mean, e2ee is great and welcome, of course. That's a wonderful thing. But I need more.
Looks like Confer is hosting its own inference: https://confer.to/blog/2026/01/private-inference/
> LLMs are fundamentally stateless—input in, output out—which makes them ideal for this environment. For Confer, we run inference inside a confidential VM. Your prompts are encrypted from your device directly into the TEE using Noise Pipes, processed there, and responses are encrypted back. The host never sees plaintext.
I don’t know what model they’re using, but it looks like everything should be staying on their servers, not going back to, eg, OpenAI or Anthropic.
Re: Confer – End to end encrypted AI chat
#8Get a fun error message on debian 13 with firefox v140: "This application requires passkey with PRF extension support for secure encryption key storage. Your browser or device doesn't support these advanced features.Please use Chrome 116+, Firefox 139+, or Edge 141+ on a device with platform authentication (Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello, etc.)."
That is funny it won't even show us the homepage.
We are allowed into the blog though! https://confer.to/blog/
Re: Confer – End to end encrypted AI chat
#9I am confused. I get E2EE chat with a TEE, but the TEEs I know of (admittedly not an expert) are not powerful enough to do the actual inference, at least not any useful one. The blog posts published so far just glance over that.
Re: Confer – End to end encrypted AI chat
#10I don't agree that this is end to end encrypted. For example, a compromise of the TEE would mean your data is exposed. In a truly end to end encrypted system, I wouldn't expect a server side compromise to be able to expose my data.
This is similar to the weasely language Google is now using with the Magic Cue feature ever since Android 16 QPR 1. When it launched, it was local only -- now it's local and in the cloud "with attestation". I don't like this trend and I don't think I'll be using such products