RE: chaos.social/@thefinalstrawrad…

Another nice surprise! A careful discussion and appreciation of our almost 8-year long running efforts, and its #deltachat and #chatmail artifacts. The "Signal contingency plan" comes complete with podcast, website and zine!

The Final Straw Radio (@thefinalstrawradio@chaos.social)

Attached: 1 image Our chat with Mary & Fanny, two independent technologists, on contingency for "what if Signal were blocked in the US" and their suggestion: @delta https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.

^{The Final Straw Radio (chaos.social)}

#Telegram has a nice and fast UI, granted.

But the 1 billion people using TG are at risk because of its big central database that any state security service craves for. Moreover, several anonymization proxy-bot offerings were hacked in 2024, identifying millions of users and content.

#deltachat builds anonymization directly into the app and has pervasive end-to-end encryption. #chatmail relay operators can sleep well, knowing they have nothing. Ergo, E2EE is good for any operators sleep! :)

#chatmail does secure email federation that works. Using lean "relay" servers that enforce metadata-minimized end-to-end encryption.

There is a new little tool that checks whether two relays are interacting well for messaging, and how fast. You need a terminal window and be able to execute:

pip install cmping

you can then run for example:

cmping mailchat.pl nine.testrun.org

to perform a "ping" test for e2ee-messaging. Also see chatmail.at/relays

github.com/chatmail/cmping/

The #chatmail #rust core is the base infrastructure library used by all apps and bots. It contains all networking, encryption, email processing and implements all the relevant IETF email standards. It's a single central development place with which the whole ecosystem of clients and bots can upgrade consistently.

We are constantly trying to remove code, and to cleanup things. That's a must to keep a 8-year long evolved code base agile and adaptable. Key insight: The best code is no code ;)

Any data that is collected on servers will eventually leak or be abused otherwise.

By design, no one can enumerate #deltachat profiles which are private and not published on any server. Conversely, #chatmail relays do not see or collect private data or metadata.

But wait, there is more :)

We are currently evolving end-to-end security protocols and UX to **survive an attacker fully taking over a server**. The attacker shall not even be able to message users, let alone impersonate anyone.

#chatmail might be a new way to deliver email but it's not a new way to deliver mail :)

"Poste restante" or "general delivery" or "waiting mail" is a mode where one can send a message to a name or, in some countries, pseudonym, @ a post office address and then someone else can come and get it, showing their name or pseudonym (passphrase). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poste_re…

Curious, which of you know/have used the poste restante mode of delivering postal mail at one point in your life?

• used "poste restante" delivery multiple times (6%, 14 votes)
• Used poste restante once (3%, 8 votes)
• Heard of it but didn't use (27%, 65 votes)
• Never heart of it. (62%, 146 votes)

Denmark and other EU governments still pursue #chatcontrol.

They still want to permanently legalize client-side scanning but postponed making it mandatory.

They also want to increase age-verification controls which risk to ruin what little is left of privacy in current digital spaces, taken hostage already by US corps.

Ourselves? We double down on providing the most private, reliable and fun messaging experience, with a growing federating #chatmail relay network across the globe.