We don't see, or plan, a place for AI in our software stacks. A few notes. Some attempts to use AI tooling provided nothing of value in the chatmail-core-UI stacks that produce the #deltachat store releases on all platforms. Some in the community AI-generated a base #webxdc app and fixed bugs afterwards.That kind of worked and was borderline useful. AI is pretty boring. We have more interesting work to do: evolve private resilient messaging by improving UX, networking, encryption, etc
We are basically doing what #signal and in particular moxie refuses to do or declares impossible: federation. Both #email and #activitypub ecosystems are all about federation. However, #deltachat is vertically centralized in that all UIs use the same #rust core which implements all networking, encryption, chat/group/message logic in a single centralized place. The now 40+ #chatmail mail relay network is driven from centralized code. At each level replication and federation is built in.
Everyone returns to email in the end. We are there already. #whatsapp wants you to add your email to secure your account ... despite all the nay sayers and numerous well funded attempts and claims to kill #email not even WA can do it. #deltachat #chatmail and #webxdc are about deep collab between people, projects and operators to evolve email from within. It is not just about SMTP and IMAP and MIME and OpenPGP which are all exchangeable and can be improved ... Which we set out to do. Cheers. image
You may setup "burner" phones for specific activities which may face repression including device seizure and forced unlocking. #deltachat does not require a sim card/number and works #OfflineFirst. Seek out wifi or mobile hotspots to connect. At best form or join affinity groups and pre-establish ephemeral chats so everyone can help each other stay safe. Group onboarding is trivial with delta. Note: Digital tools are only ever supplementary to the security coming from caring for each other.
#deltachat is secure against server-side group membership changes but for a very different reason than #signal which keeps encrypted group membership data in a central store. Delta Chat has _no_ central store but implements a rigidly tested #p2p group membership model where servers play no role Both signal and delta chat are safe against recently published attacks against #whatsapp that can add members to chats, breaking end to end encryption.
#whatsapp claims end to end security of content but: - ties your identity to a phone number - owns your identity - can see who messages whom and who is in which group etc - forces you to send local search in your private chats to Meta AI - does not allow to disable Meta AI on the main screen None of these problems exist with #deltachat devs and distributors. We have arguably the world's easiest onboarding process for a messenger that offers a Whatsapp style interface on all platforms.
Since June 1st there is a big sudden surge of new Delta Chat users and so far things are going pretty smooth. We are happy that our #chatmail infrastructure is holding up and that there is growing recognition that #deltachat is a ready-to-use and resilient chat solution. Some stats from the last days, a brief discussion of centralization risks and what we plan to do about it, also introducing a brand-new chatmail OpenCollective with a european fiscal host.
our friends over at @rPGP just published a monster milestone, humbly tagged 0.16 😍 with - streaming decryption and encryption - post-quantum-cryptography - API streamlining. #rPGP is a full Rust implementation of #openpgp which counts among the fastest and most compliant implementations today, and includes security audits. Note: #deltachat uses a restricted subset of OpenPGP, and follows best practices (eg using the same ed25519 keys implementation as #signal)
#whatsapp has been feverishly copying #telegram features the last year. Both are now in a battle who enshittifies faster. Mr. Durov announced that #Telegram, sitting on the biggest cleartext data and metadata pile second only to #Meta, is to integrate "AI" the next days, see ... Let them fight. We stubbornly continue to focus on resilient private messaging for families, groups and communities, with end-to-encrypted #webxdc apps and decentralized agency at all levels.
By design, end-to-end-encrypting #deltachat and #webxdc apps only need ephemeral transport. It's a big deal. Let's compare: - #matrix home servers maintain a cryptographic forever-chain of cleartext social-graph metadata. - #WhatsApp servers maintain cleartext metadata visible to Meta. - #Signal keeps encrypted metadata, hosted at GAFAM #chatmail relays do not persist any social graph state, also not in encrypted form. A key goal of our designs: chatmail operators can sleep well at night :)