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Delta Chat – Email Based PGP Encrypted Chat

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Re: Delta Chat – Email Based PGP Encrypted Chat

#51

Post by jasode »

lxgr wrote: post #45
jasode wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is amazing that even really a vast majority of, even technical people, not once stopped and looked at whatsapp, and said "Wait, e-mail can do this, we just need a pretty UI". WhatsApp lets people find each other with phone numbers instead email addresses. This has a profound difference in real-world usability because it decreases friction . Before WhatsApp, people texted each other using cell companies' SMS servi…

> Why did Person A (who already had an email address) send a SMS text to Person B (who also already had an email address) to chat?!? Arguably primarily because they want to chat with them and not email them. The two have vastly different UX beyond just contact discovery. Before WhatsApp there were ICQ (also number-based!), MSN, Skype... WhatsApp's main contribution over these was indeed using phone numbers and contac…

>but I don't think it makes sense at all to characterize it as a usability improvement on email.

Chats in general (not WhatsApp specifically) have "better" usability than email for some people because:

+ chats skipp the extra keystrokes of email workflow such as "Compose new email" and then enter an extra "Subject:" line which makes normal people put useless things in there such as "a quick question..." and then put the real conversation in the email body. It's a bunch of extra friction for no reason when communicating informally between friends & family.

+ chat ids such as phone numbers are not given out as freely as email addresses which makes chats have less spam and clutter and more easily isolated to personal communications. Email inboxes are clogged up with a bunch of non-chat mails like shipment notifications from Amazon.

I actually prefer email comms and have told my family to send me emails instead of text chats because I'm always at my desk and can use my full keyboard to type out a reply -- but -- they ignore me and always just send text chats. Normal people have a mental model that's geared toward text chats.

E.g. I saw my aunt again 30 years after she last saw me and one of the first things she asked was "What's your phone #? I want to send you a photo when you were little." And because I received her text, I now have my aunt's phone # in my Contacts app. But I don't have her email address. She never gave it to me; and I never asked for it.

Exchanging phone #s is the natural thing to do between friends & family. On the other hand, exchanging emails is often more natural when interacting in business settings or dealing with people at arms length.

Re: Delta Chat – Email Based PGP Encrypted Chat

#52

Post by jasode »

sras-me wrote: post #43
jasode wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is amazing that even really a vast majority of, even technical people, not once stopped and looked at whatsapp, and said "Wait, e-mail can do this, we just need a pretty UI". WhatsApp lets people find each other with phone numbers instead email addresses. This has a profound difference in real-world usability because it decreases friction . Before WhatsApp, people texted each other using cell companies' SMS servi…

>both people already had each others' phone number in their smartphone's address book... Look if it is saved in the smartphone's address book, why does it matter if it is email or a phone number. I bet that people don't actually memorize even the phone numbers of people close to them these days. >Why did Person A (who already had an email address) send a SMS text to Person B (who also already had an email address) to…

>Look if it is saved in the smartphone's address book, why does it matter if it is email or a phone number.

Because when people interact with each other in informal situations, it's the phone numbers that are shared. Not email addresses. Thus, email addresses are often not in the Contacts app at all.

Re: Delta Chat – Email Based PGP Encrypted Chat

#53

Post by lxgr »

jasode wrote: post #51
lxgr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why did Person A (who already had an email address) send a SMS text to Person B (who also already had an email address) to chat?!? Arguably primarily because they want to chat with them and not email them. The two have vastly different UX beyond just contact discovery. Before WhatsApp there were ICQ (also number-based!), MSN, Skype... WhatsApp's main contribution over these was indeed using phone numbers and contac…

>but I don't think it makes sense at all to characterize it as a usability improvement on email. Chats in general (not WhatsApp specifically) have "better" usability than email for some people because: + chats skipp the extra keystrokes of email workflow such as "Compose new email" and then enter an extra "Subject:" line which makes normal people put useless things in there such as "a quick question..." and then put…

> Chats in general (not WhatsApp specifically) have "better" usability than email

Definitely, but that's not WhatsApp's innovation.

Re: Delta Chat – Email Based PGP Encrypted Chat

#54

Post by Y_Y »

miki123211 wrote: post #11
miroljub wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Signal and WhatsApp are likely a step ahead in terms of privacy WhatsApp is closed source, so whatever they claim to can't be proven. And remember that both WhatsApp and Signal are legally required not to disclose to you whether they are spying on you or not.

> WhatsApp is closed source, so whatever they claim to can't be proven E2E only requires a correctly-designed client, not a correctly-designed server. Since any binary can always be deobfuscated, deliberately putting in a backdoor in the client would be an extremely risky PR move, especially in an app as big as WhatsApp, and one surely receiving lots of attention from security researchers. Not to mention that OpenWhi…

> Since any binary can always be deobfuscated

Are you talking about decompilation? This, is in general very difficult, and that's when the author and compiler don't want to stop you from doing it.

Go fire up jadx or ghidra or whatever you like and see if you can find the bits of code you know are there. Now try demonstrating that a bit of code isn't there.

Re: Delta Chat – Email Based PGP Encrypted Chat

#55

Post by robjan »

philips wrote: post #3

My first question on this sort of thing was how well does it work with GMail. And they have an FAQ entry on it: https://providers.delta.chat/gmail

I'm pretty sure you would be quickly rate limited, especially if you participate in a few large group chats.

Re: Delta Chat – Email Based PGP Encrypted Chat

#56

Post by miroljub »

n_plus_1_acc wrote: post #25
miroljub wrote: post #13

I tried to use it, liked the concept, but the way it handles email is a mess, making it unusable for my use case of trying to use it as an alternative mail client for my normal mail account.

I tried it a couple years ago and it sorted everything neatly into a Deltachat folder. But a friend of mine also complained abut too many mails

The issue is, if an email is sent to one of my aliases, instead of seeing one conversation between the sender and a recipient (my alias) every message creates a new group chat with the sender, my main account and my alias as members. For every single mail, even when all members are the same, a new group is created. When I reply in that group, then the email will be sent to all group members, including the original sender, and my alias. And sender would always be the main account.

This is a known Delta chat issue, but they deem it too niche to consider properly supporting aliases.

In an ideal world, when an email arrives, it should create a conversation between a sender and a recipient (alias) without adding a main account as a member. Sending a new message in that conversation will automatically use an alias as a sender. For new chats/conversations, I should be able to choose which alias to use.

Then I would be able to use it as a chat UI for my mail messages.

Re: Delta Chat – Email Based PGP Encrypted Chat

#57

Post by dingnuts »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #41
bo1024 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify "cracked"?

PGP has been cracked when you use it with automation in that you can steal keys slowly by relying on the meta-behavior of systems around PGP. A classic attack here is timing how long it takes for a PGP-based automated system to reject your messages. PGP is intended for the classic "used by a human to encrypt emails manually" flow and is actually insecure if you automate around it.

the timing attack you're describing is extremely common -- not unique to PGP -- and simple to mitigate. do you have more literature about the attack, or attacks, that you're describing?

Re: Delta Chat – Email Based PGP Encrypted Chat

#58

Post by immibis »

chuckadams wrote: post #30

Ah the famously friendly UX of PGP combined with the solid reliability of email. This is trying to get two drunks to stand up straight by leaning them against each other.

Presumably they have chosen and standardized a particular subset of PGP for their product, making it fully reliable and user-friendly.

Re: Delta Chat – Email Based PGP Encrypted Chat

#59

Post by immibis »

lxgr wrote: post #49
sras-me wrote: post #16

In a sensible world, we would be using this, instead of whatsapp. It is amazing that even really a vast majority of, even technical people, not once stopped and looked at whatsapp, and said "Wait, e-mail can do this, we just need a pretty UI".

No, if anything we'd be using XMPP or Matrix. Email is the completely wrong protocol choice for instant messaging. It's just a completely different use case. You wouldn't send a letter to the fire department if your house is on fire either.

Only because we choose it to be.

When you use XMPP or Matrix you know your message will be delivered instantly. When you use email you don't. But that's only because we haven't defined an extension that tells the client whether the server can deliver messages instantly. It's not really that inherent to the system. Surely you've had at least one real-time conversation by email because both of you happened to be online at the same time and nothing went wrong necessitating a message delay.

Re: Delta Chat – Email Based PGP Encrypted Chat

#60

Post by AAAAaccountAAAA »

miki123211 wrote: post #11
miroljub wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Signal and WhatsApp are likely a step ahead in terms of privacy WhatsApp is closed source, so whatever they claim to can't be proven. And remember that both WhatsApp and Signal are legally required not to disclose to you whether they are spying on you or not.

> WhatsApp is closed source, so whatever they claim to can't be proven E2E only requires a correctly-designed client, not a correctly-designed server. Since any binary can always be deobfuscated, deliberately putting in a backdoor in the client would be an extremely risky PR move, especially in an app as big as WhatsApp, and one surely receiving lots of attention from security researchers. Not to mention that OpenWhi…

What would be the consequences, if Meta was caught doing something "funny" with e2ee? Maybe small fines, and a brief online moral panic, but I don't think people would switch to another app en masse solely because of that.
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