[HN Gopher] Delta Chat - Email Based PGP Encrypted Chat
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Delta Chat - Email Based PGP Encrypted Chat
        
       Author : yamrzou
       Score  : 140 points
       Date   : 2025-03-05 03:50 UTC (19 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (delta.chat)
 (TXT) w3m dump (delta.chat)
        
       | rapnie wrote:
       | The landing page may be a bit too minimal in giving overview of
       | this cool project. I really liked the direction towards real-time
       | P2P networking, based on Iroh [0]. See the blog post about this
       | [1].
       | 
       | > After almost two years of collaboration with the wonderful Iroh
       | team, and years of discussions with numerous experts in the
       | decentralization space, we are happy to announce that Delta Chat
       | 1.48 apps on all platforms contain state-of-the-art Peer-to-Peer
       | networking support, including hole punching and forward-secret
       | end-to-end encryption. Concretely, Delta Chat now establishes
       | private Peer-to-Peer gossipping networks between users who start
       | a webxdc app that uses the new joinRealtimeChannel() API.
       | 
       | [0] https://iroh.computer/
       | 
       | [1] https://delta.chat/en/2024-11-20-webxdc-realtime
        
       | philips wrote:
       | 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
        
         | hobo_mark wrote:
         | Would love to know if someone actually runs it reliably.
         | Especially with a Workspace email address.
        
         | meitham wrote:
         | The whole purpose of using a distributed IM like Delta Chat is
         | to break free from big data leeches like Google. If you're just
         | using Delta Chat with a centralized Gmail server as the
         | backend, doesn't that defeat the point?
        
           | em-bee wrote:
           | at one point that used to be how email worked too. for me the
           | point of using deltachat is that it works with my existing
           | service and that it does not depend on any particular
           | company/service. issues with google are secondary. deltachat
           | is still useful even with gmail.
        
         | robjan wrote:
         | I'm pretty sure you would be quickly rate limited, especially
         | if you participate in a few large group chats.
        
       | bondant wrote:
       | Does it means the delta chat messages appears in the regular mail
       | inbox?
        
         | zevon wrote:
         | It's configurable. As per their FAQ:
         | 
         | https://delta.chat/en/help#why-can-i-choose-not-to-watch-the...
         | 
         | https://delta.chat/en/help#why-can-i-choose-to-only-watch-th...
        
       | rahen wrote:
       | On the positive side, the use of P2P and IMAP makes censorship
       | difficult, which is a strong advantage in authoritarian regimes.
       | 
       | However this comes with serious trade-offs. PGP lacks forward
       | secrecy: if a key leaks, all past messages can be decrypted. Also
       | IMAP offers no metadata privacy, anyone can see who you email and
       | how often.
       | 
       | Signal and WhatsApp are likely a step ahead in terms of privacy
       | with their double ratchet encryption
       | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ratchet_Algorithm).
        
         | miroljub wrote:
         | > 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.
        
           | miki123211 wrote:
           | > 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 OpenWhisperSystems (the creators of
           | Signal) worked with Meta on their E2E implementation, and if
           | you don't trust them to do right, you shouldn't trust
           | anybody.
           | 
           | Let's face it, people over here just don't like Meta and love
           | to spread FUD about them.
        
             | miroljub wrote:
             | One trust is lost, it's hard to regain it. The fact is, the
             | WhatsApp client is not open source, there are no
             | reproducible builds, and only thing you have is trust in
             | them.
             | 
             | If you live in an authoritarian state with a track record
             | of spying on individual citizens, and without legal
             | protection for the privacy of foreign citizens, it's
             | legitimate to decide not to trust a company like Meta
             | headquartered in the USA.
        
             | bossyTeacher wrote:
             | I love this optimism, I really do. But to believe that any
             | meta product can be private is to believe that Zuck
             | actually wants that to happen. Zuck, the guy who changes
             | company culture every 4 years or less to suit whoever is on
             | the white house. The reality is that with a closed source
             | product, you can't trust ANYTHING. Just because
             | OpenWhisperSystems worked with Meta doesn't mean anything.
             | Meta will easily silence them legally if they wanted to.
             | And Meta can always remove or disable the implementation as
             | they see fit.
        
             | ekianjo wrote:
             | So you trust without proof. That's nice.
        
             | balamatom wrote:
             | >Let's face it, people over here just don't like Meta and
             | love to spread FUD about them.
             | 
             | It's called punching upwards.
             | 
             | >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
             | 
             | Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't a proprietary delivery
             | mechanism such as the App or Play stores deliver a
             | backdoored build to an individual device, then later
             | autoupdate it to a clean one?
        
               | thecrash wrote:
               | Builds are signed by the software publisher, not the Play
               | Store. So the store alone couldn't corrupt releases, it
               | would need collaboration by the publisher. (Google does
               | have a service for app developers where they keep and
               | manage your signing keys for you, but it's not required)
        
             | Y_Y wrote:
             | > 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.
        
             | AAAAaccountAAAA wrote:
             | 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.
        
             | tcfhgj wrote:
             | > Let's face it, people over here just don't like Meta and
             | love to spread FUD about them.
             | 
             | Yep, don't like it. They already have proven to not be
             | trustworthy by various privacy scandals in the past
        
         | mubou wrote:
         | > if a key leaks, all past messages can be decrypted
         | 
         | Not to mention, if you revoke a key (maybe because you lost
         | your laptop and want to be proactive about security), without
         | any authenticated timestamping service in the mix, all past
         | messages and signatures can no longer be trusted, regardless of
         | the revocation date. That's why when you revoke a key on
         | github, all your previous commits' signatures turn red.
         | 
         | I've never understood why no one's succeeded in doing anything
         | about this after all these years.
        
         | darthrupert wrote:
         | WhatsApp obviously cannot be trusted for message privacy for
         | the simple reason that Meta paid gazillion bucks for it. I
         | don't understand why people need more evidence beyond that.
        
           | fdb345 wrote:
           | the cant read your messages. thats the usp of using signal
           | encryption
           | 
           | its the rest of the account and metadata that is at risk
        
       | HelloUsername wrote:
       | Previous discussions:
       | 
       | 24-jan-2021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25893626 148
       | comments
       | 
       | 07-jan-2021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25674894 4
       | commments
       | 
       | 27-feb-2019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19263357 11
       | comments
       | 
       | 21-feb-2019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19216827 56
       | comments
       | 
       | 03-feb-2017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13560279 1
       | comment
        
       | Mulderns wrote:
       | There was a few talks about Delta Chat in FOSDEM'25. Seems it has
       | come a long way since inception.
       | 
       | https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-5853-delt...
       | 
       | https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-5217-chat...
        
       | miroljub wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | pedrogpimenta wrote:
         | "I used a hammer to make orange juice and it made a mess!
         | Unusable!"
        
         | n_plus_1_acc wrote:
         | 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
        
           | miroljub wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | em-bee wrote:
             | a long time ago i envisioned that mail clients should
             | really display mails as a conversation just like you
             | describe. a list with all my contacts. and opening the
             | contact gives me all emails received and sent with that
             | contact.
             | 
             | if you want to use different aliases in deltachat, i think
             | the best option for now is to create different deltachat
             | profiles for each. you can have multiple profiles active at
             | once and you get notifications for all of them, you only
             | have to switch profiles to see all the messages. switching
             | profiles is a single click and feels like switching folders
             | in traditional mail clients.
        
       | bluebarbet wrote:
       | Several years ago I tried DeltaChat and it caused an
       | insurmountable problem: my mail provider kept locking me out of
       | my account. Almost certainly it was because DeltaChat's
       | suspiciously ciphertext-filled messages were triggering the abuse
       | lockdown.
       | 
       | The provider was GMX and it was their fault, not DeltaChat's. But
       | I had to call off the experiment.
        
         | josephb wrote:
         | > The provider was GMX and it was their fault, not DeltaChat's.
         | 
         | Noting that the team have put together "Chatmail" a minimal
         | email suite designed for speed, security and convenience.
         | 
         | Also helps with the whole "onboarding to chat" and multiple
         | identities not linked to existing accounts.
         | 
         | https://delta.chat/en/chatmail
         | 
         | There are multiple public servers which may be an option,
         | instead of using an existing email account at provider X.
        
       | sras-me wrote:
       | 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".
        
         | mab122 wrote:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
        
         | drpossum wrote:
         | To say nothing of the fact that most people are not running
         | their own email servers so that messaging is going to reside in
         | places they don't own and the fact that relays get to read
         | about everything exacerbating that problem, so you cannot
         | really expect forward secrecy:
         | 
         | Does this solve _all the other problems_ with encrypted email,
         | which is not widely used for a reason?
         | 
         | Here's a discussion
         | 
         | https://www.latacora.com/blog/2020/02/19/stop-using-encrypte...
        
           | lxgr wrote:
           | > most people are not running their own email servers
           | 
           | I honestly don't care about what the people I communicate
           | with do, as long as I have the capability to at least own my
           | persistent identifier (i.e. my TLD).
           | 
           | Just having that capability exerts just the right type of
           | pressure on large service providers to maintain a baseline
           | quality of service, regardless of whether the majority
           | actually makes use of it or not, just like phone number
           | portability has done in that domain.
        
         | wink wrote:
         | From the website:
         | 
         | > Reliable instant messaging
         | 
         | If it's based on e-mail, it's just not. (if we assume generally
         | close-to-realtime delivery and not being blocked by random
         | recipients)
        
           | foul wrote:
           | Email is a communication system with a lot of moving parts.
           | You can't have reliable IM through existing MX servers but
           | you may have it if for example SMTPs are running on your
           | machine and you poll their data more (it's just an example,
           | _I know_ that with an SMTP running on your phone you 'd have
           | more problems).
        
             | hkt wrote:
             | See earlier on today's front page, another all in one mail
             | server. It is much, much simpler than it was to do this.
             | I've been self hosting email for nearly 20 years and the
             | state of the art is considerably better now. Latency is
             | virtually nonexistent and federation works.
        
         | jasode wrote:
         | _> 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 service.
         | 
         | 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?!? Because both people already had each others' _phone
         | number_ in their smartphone 's address books. Recording each
         | other's email address is less likely so it won't be used as
         | "ids" to chat -- especially between friends & family.
         | 
         | To wit, my mother has already _memorized my brand new phone
         | number_ that I 've only had for a few years but she doesn't
         | know my email address at all even though I've sent it and re-
         | sent it to her multiple times. To normal people, the _phone
         | numbers are more sacred_ than email addresses. WhatsApp was a
         | continuation of the conveniences of SMS -- without paying 10
         | cents per message to the mobile phone carriers.
         | 
         | Friction from cognitive overhead is a big deal in technology
         | adoption.
        
           | wisienkas wrote:
           | I mean you could simply setup a registry of Aliases for
           | emails to achieve the same effect?
           | 
           | On the same note, isn't phone numbers being more sensitive
           | information than email nowadays, hence you might not want to
           | share it.
        
             | A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
             | That ship seems to have largely sailed and the trend will
             | be hard to reverse given how cell number has started to
             | become all-purpose ID number tracker.
        
           | sras-me wrote:
           | >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 chat?!?
           | 
           | I think it is because we didn't have near universal internet
           | access in smartphones for a long time. If Whatsapp (or
           | something like that) was a little bit late to appear, and the
           | tech crowd was actually a bit more smarter, things like Delta
           | Chat had a much better chance to be in Whatsapps current
           | place.
        
             | jasode wrote:
             | _> 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.
        
           | lxgr wrote:
           | > 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 contacts access for automated contact
           | discovery, but I don't think it makes sense at all to
           | characterize it as a usability improvement on email.
           | 
           | Another case in point: iMessage supports email addresses as
           | identifiers too. I don't even have my phone number on there
           | because I consider it a strictly inferior identifier (it
           | changes every time I move countries, I lose it if payments to
           | my operator ever lapse, unlike a TLD I have no way of owning
           | it independently from a phone plan etc.)
        
             | jasode wrote:
             | _> 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.
        
               | lxgr wrote:
               | > Chats in general (not WhatsApp specifically) have
               | "better" usability than email
               | 
               | Definitely, but that's not WhatsApp's innovation.
        
               | fdb345 wrote:
               | just give them your signal number and use signal desktop
               | 
               | i do the same as you as i dont carry a phone anymore
               | (fucking with the police).
        
           | darthrupert wrote:
           | Email address is a *far* better identifier than a random
           | string of numbers though. The only reason why phone number
           | discoverability works better is because everyone keeps being
           | in that ancient world.
        
         | giancarlostoro wrote:
         | I mean... WhatsApp is literally XMPP / Jabber... It's amazing
         | that we didn't stop and said, wait, Jabber can do this, we just
         | need a pretty UI...
         | 
         | Hell, Jabber can still do this. I'm not convinced of the other
         | modern alternatives that don't have half the functional
         | capabilities that Jabber do.
         | 
         | The only "downside" of Jabber is that it's XML based, but
         | really if you think about it, that's a strength. Anyone here
         | could probably parse the protocol effortlessly. There's also
         | lots of fully functional clients out today, and servers that
         | scale like nobody's business.
         | 
         | I'm more ashamed we don't invest more into XMPP: Google Talk,
         | Facebook Chat and WhatsApp were built around it. These are
         | companies with insane to scale userbases, tried and tested.
         | 
         | Here's a 2008 article from Facebook on using their chat with a
         | Jabber client:
         | 
         | https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/110/
        
           | thiht wrote:
           | > it's XML based, but really if you think about it, that's a
           | strength
           | 
           | Nope.
           | 
           | Another downside is the X. The protocol being extensible
           | means that no two clients implement the same subset of
           | extensions making it useless. I've been scolded in the past
           | for using the "wrong" client, making my messages look weird
           | for people using the "right" client. Just make a good
           | protocol.
        
         | fsflover wrote:
         | > "Wait, e-mail can do this, we just need a pretty UI"
         | 
         | This reminds me on this nice comment thread:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19217818
        
           | em-bee wrote:
           | i have been arguing this ever since ICQ became popular. back
           | then i got a lot of angry reactions. i already explained it
           | here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38029579
           | 
           | that generic server backend that i am describing in my linked
           | comment is something i am using here:
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42159045
        
         | lxgr wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | immibis wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | lxgr wrote:
             | Yes, it's theoretically possible to adapt many protocols to
             | many use cases, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
             | Email and XMPP are just geared towards very different use
             | cases.
             | 
             | In particular, Email has a lot of assumptions about
             | acceptable delivery delays, bidirectional
             | (non-)reachability etc. baked in that would be very hard to
             | globally undo.
        
               | immibis wrote:
               | As programmers, is it not our natural instinct to create
               | a ChatSystem and MailSystem on top of a
               | GenericMessageDeliverySystem? When did we stop doing
               | that? Creating a brand new GenericMessageDeliverySystem
               | for each purpose comes with substantial costs. We don't
               | reinvent the Internet to create WhatsApp.
        
               | lxgr wrote:
               | What generic message delivery system are you talking
               | about, though?
               | 
               | SMTP is optimized for the use case of email; XMPP is
               | optimized for one-to-one instant messaging; Matrix is
               | optimized for "Slack-like" chat.
               | 
               | I highly doubt that these three use cases are similar
               | enough to warrant introducing an additional common
               | protocol/layer.
        
           | tweetle_beetle wrote:
           | I think the point is that it builds on existing
           | infrastructure that almost everyone already has in their
           | life. Whether you self-host, use a niche provider, or a
           | mainstream provider, email provides a pretty interoperable
           | starting point which isn't a walled garden and doesn't have
           | to be owned by FAANG.
           | 
           | Are there some compromises? Of course. But creating new
           | accounts, or using new services isn't one of them. Email-
           | speed instant messaging is good enough for me.
           | 
           | And to be honest, as much as I like Matrix, it has plenty of
           | compromise of its own - including speed/reliability when
           | using their own servers.
        
       | meitham wrote:
       | For those unaware, this was created by Holger Krekel, the brain
       | behind pypy and pytest! Another great product.
        
         | Imustaskforhelp wrote:
         | didn't knew that!
         | 
         | Even though I am part of this secure messaging group chat on
         | matrix thing and I had even created a whole tierlist of
         | security of protocols etc. and saw delta chat & have it running
         | and fiddled with it.
         | 
         | The fact that it is written by creator of pypy is wholesome!!
        
       | alberth wrote:
       | Reminds me of Topicbox (by Fastmail).
       | 
       | https://www.topicbox.com/
        
       | chuckadams wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | lopsidedgrin wrote:
         | > This is trying to get two drunks to stand up straight by
         | leaning them against each other.
         | 
         | Thank you for painting this beautiful picture.
        
         | hkt wrote:
         | They've actually cracked PGP, and email is fine, especially
         | between self hosters and anyone using chatmail. I've been using
         | it for years: Delta really, really works.
        
           | bo1024 wrote:
           | Can you clarify "cracked"?
        
             | pclmulqdq wrote:
             | 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.
        
               | dingnuts wrote:
               | 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?
        
         | pclmulqdq wrote:
         | Very secure, too. You get all the insecurity of automated use
         | of PGP combined with the insecurity of using email protocols.
        
         | immibis wrote:
         | Presumably they have chosen and standardized a particular
         | subset of PGP for their product, making it fully reliable and
         | user-friendly.
        
         | usr1106 wrote:
         | Have you used it?
        
       | INTPenis wrote:
       | I wish I could send a one-time link to my father where we could
       | play chess against each other by re-visiting the same link.
       | 
       | The e-mail part made me think of this. I have no use for an
       | e-mail based chat but an online chess game that's easy to use
       | without registration would be cool. He's 82 and he can't use
       | complex sites.
        
         | lxgr wrote:
         | > an online chess game that's easy to use without registration
         | would be cool
         | 
         | Lichess lets you play without registration, I believe (or at
         | least one player; not sure if both sides can be anonymous).
        
         | em-bee wrote:
         | well then deltachat is exactly what you want because it
         | supports webxdc apps which can run in the deltachat client.
         | here is the chess app: https://webxdc.org/apps/#arcanecircle-
         | chess
        
       | fdb345 wrote:
       | The most important factor with email, is that your inbox is
       | encrypted at rest at all times... and cannot be bruteforced.
       | 
       | The chances of your email messages being 'man in the middled' are
       | almost non-existent. Its a micro-percent of live investigations
       | that does this.
       | 
       | The police RELY ON finding messages in either your inbox or the
       | recipients. It doesnt matter if they are encrypted or not in
       | reality. Of course they'd like to read them and if they are this
       | deep into you. Its likely they still will (probably from the
       | recipients lesser password hygiene than yours).
       | 
       | Almost no evidence is every 'plucked' out of the air and read. It
       | just doesnt work that way.
       | 
       | However, software like Delta is better than nothing esp for
       | normies. Its just limited in use for people who really need ways
       | to frustrate LE.
       | 
       | Source: Ive been under NCA and FBI investigation before.
       | Protonmail with the two password method stopped them every time.
       | Memorise the 2nd password and password manager the first.
        
         | tredre3 wrote:
         | > Ive been under NCA and FBI investigation before. Protonmail
         | with the two password method stopped them every time. Memorise
         | the 2nd password and password manager the first.
         | 
         | Unless you exclusively use proton-bridge and disabled auto-
         | update, then proton controls all endpoints in which your
         | passwords live.
         | 
         | So what is preventing the FBI from forcing Proton to serve a
         | special UI just to you that will be used to exfiltrate your
         | second password?
        
           | adiabatichottub wrote:
           | In the US you might be able to argue it amounts to "compelled
           | speech", and is unconstitutional.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_d.
           | ..
        
         | 7bit wrote:
         | You have? Why?
        
       | aslandb wrote:
       | would be nice if all the "no, no, this can't work! email is slow!
       | blah blah" guys once and for all actually give it a try to the
       | app and realize IT WORKS AND IT IS BLAZING FAST! I have been
       | using it since years with my family and some friends without any
       | problems, it is the best I could find after trying Matrix, XMPP,
       | etc.
        
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