5 ms·

I've been thinking a lot about PGP and other encrypted messengers lately. It's incredibly hard to get a lot of people to agree on one messaging app besides defa

by milge 10y ago

I've been thinking a lot about PGP and other encrypted messengers lately. It's incredibly hard to get a lot of people to agree on one messaging app besides default SMS. I wish there was an open source suite of tools for mobile/desktop that easily layered PGP on top of SMS/email experience and would fall back in the absence of keys. Perhaps bluetooth for swapping keys with friends. It's something that needs to be seamless enough that the end user can't tell the difference. I don't think messaging encryption will achieve mass adoption until something like that is built or built into mobile OS's.

erelde 10y ago
Carriers would need to change the way they handle SMS, and everything a carrier does is subject to state regulations. And states seem to like clear text.
- milge 10y ago
  Why's that? I understand the message would increase in size because of the encryption, but I think it would be technically feasible now. Didn't even apple just introduce encryption into their messenger? My issue with apple's encryption is it's closed source and apple only.
  - heartbreak 10y ago
    iMessage end-to-end encryption is not a recent introduction. It has been in place for several years, though I can't find the exact iOS version it was introduced in.
    - milge 10y ago
      Recent to me is the last few years, technology-wise. Your timeline may look different.
      - heartbreak 10y ago
        Fair point. We are talking about a 5 year old product though...
  - wyager 10y ago
    Apple's iMessage just detects when the other party is using an iOS device and sends them an iMessage instead of an SMS. The GP is right; cell service is so aggressively regulated that there's no hope of carriers adopting a better standard, so the best we can hope for is that at some point mobile OS distributors agree on some open standard like the Signal protocol.
mtgx 10y ago
That's pretty much how TextSecure used to work for SMS, but you still needed to get people to use it for SMS.
mnw21cam 10y ago
> ...bluetooth for swapping keys... First rule of PGP keysigning parties - don't bring a computer. (Or at least if you do, don't turn it on.)

by milge 10y ago

erelde 10y ago

Carriers would need to change the way they handle SMS, and everything a carrier does is subject to state regulations. And states seem to like clear text.

milge 10y ago
Why's that? I understand the message would increase in size because of the encryption, but I think it would be technically feasible now. Didn't even apple just introduce encryption into their messenger? My issue with apple's encryption is it's closed source and apple only.
- heartbreak 10y ago
  iMessage end-to-end encryption is not a recent introduction. It has been in place for several years, though I can't find the exact iOS version it was introduced in.
  - milge 10y ago
    Recent to me is the last few years, technology-wise. Your timeline may look different.
    - heartbreak 10y ago
      Fair point. We are talking about a 5 year old product though...
- wyager 10y ago
  Apple's iMessage just detects when the other party is using an iOS device and sends them an iMessage instead of an SMS. The GP is right; cell service is so aggressively regulated that there's no hope of carriers adopting a better standard, so the best we can hope for is that at some point mobile OS distributors agree on some open standard like the Signal protocol.

mtgx 10y ago

That's pretty much how TextSecure used to work for SMS, but you still needed to get people to use it for SMS.

mnw21cam 10y ago

> ...bluetooth for swapping keys... First rule of PGP keysigning parties - don't bring a computer. (Or at least if you do, don't turn it on.)