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1. Embed this notice
   feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Sunday, 09-Mar-2025 07:03:23 JST feld

   • Delta Chat
   I wrote a #DeltaChat blog post for technical users who are skeptical about how it works
   
   Everything You Think You Know About DeltaChat Is Wrong
   
   https://blog.feld.me/posts/2025/03/deltachat-is-actually-good-though/
   
   @delta
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Sunday, 09-Mar-2025 09:35:19 JST feld

     in reply to

     • Delta Chat
     • Fabrice Desré
     • rohden
     @rohden @delta @fabrice Correct, it's left on the server so other devices can get a copy. I don't know if there are plans to solve this with Iroh device to device connections yet but it would be possible
   • Embed this notice
     rohden (rohden@fe.disroot.org)'s status on Sunday, 09-Mar-2025 09:35:20 JST rohden

     in reply to

     • Delta Chat
     • Fabrice Desré
     @delta @fabrice @feld
     
     
     #chatmail if a single device setup is used end-to-end encrypted message get removed after the app downloaded it. The situation is different for multi device setups, right?
   • Embed this notice
     Delta Chat (delta@chaos.social)'s status on Sunday, 09-Mar-2025 09:35:21 JST Delta Chat

     in reply to

     • Fabrice Desré

     @fabrice @feld #chatmail servers do not keep persistent logs, and only the end-devices have the readable messages of a conversation. Servers briefly see an end-to-end encrypted message but it gets removed after the app downloaded it.

   • Embed this notice
     Fabrice Desré (fabrice@fosstodon.org)'s status on Sunday, 09-Mar-2025 09:35:22 JST Fabrice Desré

     in reply to

     • Delta Chat

     @feld @delta Good write up, thanks! One question: when 2 people are in a conversation, are there any persisted logs of the exchanges between the 2 random email addresses?

   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Sunday, 09-Mar-2025 10:30:08 JST feld

     in reply to

     • adb
     • treefit
     • DeltaTouch
     • Lothar
     @treefit @deltatouch @lk108 @adbenitez I didn't know of that specific list / forum post and will have to update my blog post to mention it :) thanks
   • Embed this notice
     treefit (treefit@fosstodon.org)'s status on Sunday, 09-Mar-2025 10:30:09 JST treefit

     in reply to

     • adb
     • DeltaTouch
     • Lothar

     @feld

     Do you already know
     https://support.delta.chat/t/list-of-all-known-client-projects/3059 ?

     @deltatouch (ubuntu touch client) would be worth mentioning, especially with the blogpost from @lk108 : https://delta.chat/en/2023-07-02-deltatouch

     Arcane chat is technically a soft-fork of the android client with special patches and extra features by @adbenitez

   • Embed this notice
     treefit (treefit@fosstodon.org)'s status on Sunday, 09-Mar-2025 10:31:26 JST treefit

     in reply to

     • adb
     • DeltaTouch
     • Lothar

     @feld @adbenitez @deltatouch @lk108

     I mostly wanted to share loathers blogpost in which he describes how easy it was for him to create a new client because the api of dc core is easy to understand.

     feld likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     lainy (lain@lain.com)'s status on Sunday, 09-Mar-2025 15:55:42 JST lainy

     in reply to

     • kaia
     • Delta Chat
     @feld @delta cc @kaia
   • Embed this notice
     Delta Chat (delta@chaos.social)'s status on Monday, 10-Mar-2025 00:58:19 JST Delta Chat

     in reply to

     • Matthieu Weber 🇫🇷/🇫🇮

     @matthieu @feld yes, many chatmail servers are not ddos protected likely. Some run in environments where ddos protection exists.
     Fwiw ddossing all email servers world wide is probably a daunting task and would bring most governments and institutions to a grinding halt.

     We have stopped publishing about new chatmail server setups half a year ago btw and are to devise a decentralized way to distribute information about chatmail servers. We don't want to provide public block lists, basically.

     feld likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Matthieu Weber 🇫🇷/🇫🇮 (matthieu@mastodon.weber.fi.eu.org)'s status on Monday, 10-Mar-2025 00:58:34 JST Matthieu Weber 🇫🇷/🇫🇮

     in reply to

     • Delta Chat

     @feld @delta so at the moment the registration feature of chatmail makes it vulnerable to a DoS attack. It does not break the confidentiality of the messages, but it could make the service unusable for the users of that server. Did I get this right?

   • Embed this notice
     KawaiiPunk (kawaiipunk@sunbeam.city)'s status on Monday, 10-Mar-2025 04:53:45 JST KawaiiPunk

     in reply to

     • Delta Chat

     @feld @delta DeltaChat is so rad. I didn't "get it" for ages until Chatmail came out.

     feld likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Léon van Kammen (lvk@mastodon.online)'s status on Monday, 10-Mar-2025 07:56:00 JST Léon van Kammen

     in reply to

     • Lionel CoupouchettyRamouchetty
     • Delta Chat

     @delta @lionel @feld
     Personally I look at deltachat/chatmail as email v2 a la carte.
     I use it in classic unencrypted mode for one [classic] email account, and another [chatmail] account for encrypted DM's.

     Btw. what happens if we both change our chatmail adress to 'john@samemailchatserver.io'?

   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Monday, 10-Mar-2025 07:56:00 JST feld

     in reply to

     • Lionel CoupouchettyRamouchetty
     • Delta Chat
     • Léon van Kammen
     @lvk @delta @lionel whoever changes first creates the account / sets the password. If anyone else tries they will not be able to login.
     
     If someone does get your password they won't be able to successfully impersonate you without your key
   • Embed this notice
     Delta Chat (delta@chaos.social)'s status on Monday, 10-Mar-2025 07:56:02 JST Delta Chat

     in reply to

     • Lionel CoupouchettyRamouchetty

     @lionel @feld chatmail addresses are not like classic email accounts or any other regular platforms's accounts for that matter. A chatmail address by default keeps no data. There is no registration data other than the password. It's really just about taking control of an address. This is why we rarely talk about "accounts" because everyone is used to this being a heavy bag of collected data and state.

   • Embed this notice
     Lionel CoupouchettyRamouchetty (lionel@toot.coupou.fr)'s status on Monday, 10-Mar-2025 07:56:03 JST Lionel CoupouchettyRamouchetty

     in reply to

     • Delta Chat

     @feld @delta

     Hi and thanks for your blog post. I must say I was skeptical at first as I had already tried deltachat and I wasn't convinced. At the time I was under the impression that the main advantage of deltachat over other IM services was that there was no need for creating another account. I just used existing email accounts and then hit (as expected) the issues mentioned in your post among others.

     It's a shame because I think that was the one thing that could have made DeltaChat worth the try for non technical user.

     I can see myself use it, as a concerned, motivated "technically educated" user but it seems it's not mature enough for ordinary people, as I read some features are missing regarding user-friendliness and a lot of people in my contacts list would just dismiss it if it doesn't show the same level of features as what they're currently using.

     In the meantime the best middle ground I found was matrix with a select list of bridges but I'm not losing hope of finding some better alternative so I'll definitely keep an eye on DeltaChat.

   • Embed this notice
     Bhante Subharo :xmpp: (sbb@c.im)'s status on Monday, 10-Mar-2025 09:45:16 JST Bhante Subharo :xmpp:

     in reply to

     • Delta Chat

     @feld @delta I thought the blog post was good, and two points really stuck out:
     1) For ease of adding contacts, since you can scan barcodes between smartphones, Deltachat might as well be another Signal or WhatsApp (for how convenient this is). I had to admit that scanning a barcode to add a contact is becoming more commonplace by the day - kudos to #deltachat for supporting it.
     2) When migration to another server was mentioned as being so easy, thanks to AEAP - "Advanced Email Address Porting" - that seriously blew my mind. I jumped out of my chair and exclaimed something to the effect of "shut the front door!"

     feld likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Monday, 10-Mar-2025 09:54:41 JST feld

     in reply to

     • Delta Chat
     • Bhante Subharo :xmpp:
     @sbb @delta You can click a link too hit the barcode/QR is pretty convenient
     
     AEAP is an amazing concept isn't it? You get to have a nomadic identity
   • Embed this notice
     Léon van Kammen (lvk@mastodon.online)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Mar-2025 02:02:12 JST Léon van Kammen

     in reply to

     • Lionel CoupouchettyRamouchetty
     • Delta Chat

     @feld @delta @lionel wonderful, really impressive work!

     feld likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Mar-2025 03:41:14 JST feld

     in reply to

     • Lionel CoupouchettyRamouchetty
     • Delta Chat
     • Léon van Kammen
     @lionel @delta @lvk Have you tried the onboarding flow yet? Is there something you think could be improved for the average user?
   • Embed this notice
     Lionel CoupouchettyRamouchetty (lionel@toot.coupou.fr)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Mar-2025 03:41:15 JST Lionel CoupouchettyRamouchetty

     in reply to

     • Delta Chat
     • Léon van Kammen

     @feld
     I understand that, it's just another set of id info to keep track of. Whether it's the usual user/password combination or some encryption key is not the point. Actually having to explain people that we don't really care about the actual Id/password but only the key just adds complexity. Again I'm talking about on-boarding the average user.
     @delta @lvk

   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 02:06:58 JST feld

     in reply to

     • Delta Chat
     • gvs
     @gvs @delta Simplex has two options for routing messages: the centralized SMP servers, and a 2-hop onion/Tor-like private message routing using forwarding nodes. Both of these are easily blocked if you want to shutdown access to Simplex for users.
     
     XMPP: easy to block
     Anything using Nostr: easy to block
     
     Shutting down all email services in your jurisdiction: much harder to accomplish
   • Embed this notice
     gvs (gvs@rebelbase.site)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 02:07:00 JST gvs

     in reply to

     • Delta Chat
     Quickly read it but regardless of common misconceptions about deltachat, I cannot see a single advantage of it over SimpleX (my current top pick) or XMPP, and probably also KeyChat or Whitenoise on #nostr)
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 02:09:01 JST feld

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @adiz have you actually tried it yet, though? It cost you nothing but a minute of your time. No need to provide any identifying information to make an account, and the account will be auto-deleted if it's idle for too long.
     
     click the link in my bio to message me. I'll show you some cool stuff that no other messenger has.
   • Embed this notice
     👺防空識別區👹 (adiz@mtl.jinxian.casa)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 02:09:02 JST 👺防空識別區👹

     in reply to

     @feld Read it. Comprehend it. Still don't like DeltaChat and still thinks it's kinda bunk (albeit novel).

   • Embed this notice
     pwm (pwm@darkdork.dev)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 02:22:27 JST pwm

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @adiz @feld this statement is technically inaccurate. Xmpp and Delta chat have the same federated model, so architecturally they are equivalent.
     
     However, a key pain point for me for xmpp is that media attachment is out of band with regards to the protocol, occurring over http. It has all the same privacy concerns that media uploaded to the fediverse does. As media sent over Delta chat occurs in band (email attachment) and is end-to-end encrypted, it is strictly better from a privacy perspective.
     
     However, from a normalfag perspective, interface remains the chief detriment of using xmpp over other solutions. The xmpp ecosystem has been waiting for "someone else" to make a good, functional, attractive client forever. It is not a good argument to say that all it needs is a client that has not been developed in 20 plus years. One client that is a functional clone of something that normalfags are used to like telegram or Whatsapp, is an enormous selling point for people not concerned with, or unable to understand arguments for privacy.
     
     I like xmpp. I like Delta chat. But there will be no one true instant messaging solution until a plurality of users exist that brings it to dominate the market. Currently, those are all proprietary networks tied to services like Facebook or well, mostly Facebook I guess.
   • Embed this notice
     👺防空識別區👹 (adiz@mtl.jinxian.casa)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 02:22:28 JST 👺防空識別區👹

     in reply to

     @feld

     >have you actually tried it yet, though

     Yes, I have. And, it worked. But, it sucked. And I don't want to go through the lengths to make it not suck (like a dedicated address for it + a Chatmail deployment) when I already run an XMPP service which does everything DeltaChat does but better + more.

   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 02:25:05 JST feld

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     • pwm
     @pwm @adiz
     
     > The xmpp ecosystem has been waiting for "someone else" to make a good, functional, attractive client forever.
     
     they did. It's called iMessage and Whatsapp 😂
     
     The open source community is never going to fill this gap. I'd like to be proven wrong, but I've been waiting for 20 years now...
     pwm likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     wuhan.bat™ (jae@darkdork.dev)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 02:47:36 JST wuhan.bat™

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     • pwm

     @feld @pwm @adiz

     The open source community is never going to fill this gap. I'd like to be proven wrong, but I've been waiting for 20 years now...

     waiting just as long. hasn't happened. the desktop ui for deltachat feels wonky and i'm slowly moving away from handset although arcanechat for 'droid is pretty okay.

     what i like about deltachat is i already have a mail system which i use for.. mail. i can still keep encrypted mail separate from delta(openpgp) encrypted messages and it just works. i've handed deltachat to people in this thread, elsewhere on fedi, at the local coffee haus, and to the chick i'm dating who's not technical. so far so good.

     i was always an enthusiast of xmpp, but damned if i can't get anyone to talk on it regularly so i use it for a transport bridge for fun, nothing serious.

     feld likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 02:47:55 JST feld

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     • pwm
     • wuhan.bat™
     @jae @pwm @adiz The desktop app is being rewritten from Electron to Tauri, fwiw
   • Embed this notice
     👺防空識別區👹 (adiz@mtl.jinxian.casa)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 02:56:17 JST 👺防空識別區👹

     in reply to

     • pwm

     @pwm Everyone talks about XMPP and bad clients, but I just don't have this experience. There are multiple clients available and they all work well for me. 🤷

     It's kinda a moot point when Delta Chat has just the one client.

     I can concede media being facilitated by HTTP in XMPP vs. within the protocol itself. Still more performant and capable than trying to do file transfer over SMTP. @feld

     prettygood likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 03:02:23 JST feld

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     • pwm
     @adiz @pwm Just one client?
     
     DeltaTouch for Ubuntu Touch
     ArcaneChat for Android
     ArcaneChat TUI
     kdeltachat for the KDE folks (stale at the moment though)
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 03:05:12 JST feld

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     • pwm
     @adiz @pwm
     
     > Everyone talks about XMPP and bad clients, but I just don't have this experience.
     
     If you lock yourself in a box where only Android and Linux desktops exist, sure, there's an *okay* XMPP experience available. Conversations on Android is like the only good client available.
     
     But the experience is still terrible on Windows, Mac, and iPhones
   • Embed this notice
     👺防空識別區👹 (adiz@mtl.jinxian.casa)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 03:06:03 JST 👺防空識別區👹

     in reply to

     • pwm

     @feld Ah, I've only seen the DeltaChat app and I had sought out other alternate clients at the time as well.

     >Ubuntu Touch

     🤣🤣🤣

     @pwm

     feld likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 03:08:33 JST feld

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     • pwm
     @adiz @pwm it's pretty easy for you to build a client on any platform if you want. You get to skip all the annoying parts of reinventing the SMTP/IMAP/PGP and Iroh functionality. In fact it would be stupid to reinvent it because the core has been audited multiple times.
     
     So you just wrap the core DeltaChat JSON-RPC server (written in Rust) and treat it like an API service, and you're done.
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 03:15:38 JST feld

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     • pwm
     @adiz @pwm just because there are client libraries for these protocols in another language don't mean they're good or safe
   • Embed this notice
     👺防空識別區👹 (adiz@mtl.jinxian.casa)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 03:15:40 JST 👺防空識別區👹

     in reply to

     • pwm

     @feld Everything we're talking about (XMPP, SMTP, IMAP, etc.) are pre-existing and well established protocols that are neither new nor need reinventing. @pwm

   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 03:15:58 JST feld

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     • pwm
     • wuhan.bat™
     @jae @pwm @adiz the tauri branch can be found here. I've never tested it, know nothing about it right now really
     
     https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-desktop/tree/simon/tauri-flatpak
   • Embed this notice
     wuhan.bat™ (jae@darkdork.dev)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 03:15:59 JST wuhan.bat™

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     • pwm
     • wuhan.bat™
     @feld @adiz @pwm it looks like the latest non-electron is https://github.com/dignifiedquire/dreamer which hasn't had much velocity lately. we'll have to see how it goes.
   • Embed this notice
     wuhan.bat™ (jae@darkdork.dev)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 03:16:00 JST wuhan.bat™

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     • pwm
     @feld @pwm @adiz looking forward to it! i'm spiking out golang tui client at the moment. also experimenting with the bots to kick off infra tasking.
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 03:43:18 JST feld

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     • pwm
     • wuhan.bat™
     @jae @pwm @adiz I haven't run a BSD desktop in over 10 years but I'm itching to go back
   • Embed this notice
     wuhan.bat™ (jae@darkdork.dev)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 03:43:19 JST wuhan.bat™

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     • pwm
     @feld @pwm @adiz thanks, i overlooked it. for now i'll keep on what is working. i'm starting to migrate fully to bsd for my desktop system, so that should also be a good time.
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 23:38:57 JST feld

     in reply to

     • gvs
     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @gvs @adiz "known service providers" -- every email server is a DeltaChat service provider.
     
     Do you think Russia is going to shutdown Yandex to stop people from using DeltaChat on it and cripple their own country's ability to use the internet?
     
     The most they can do is demand all email servers in their jurisdiction block all encrypted emails, period, which requires custom technical solutions for each provider and will have severe consequences as well. Encrypted emails are not as uncommon as people think.
     
     If I work in the government and want to be a whistleblower I could literally use my government email account with DeltaChat. Maybe they'll eventually detect that I'm using it, but they'll never be able to decrypt those messages.
   • Embed this notice
     gvs (gvs@rebelbase.site)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 23:38:59 JST gvs

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     It's feeble because Simplex now defaults to port 443, which is also difficult to block as a whole. What ends up happening is that known service providers will get blocked and deltachat has 0 advantage again.
   • Embed this notice
     👺防空識別區👹 (adiz@mtl.jinxian.casa)'s status on Wednesday, 14-May-2025 23:39:00 JST 👺防空識別區👹

     in reply to

     • gvs

     @feld This is basically the only argument I keep seeing for DeltaChat. "But it's difficult to block because it's SMTP and that wouldn't be reasonable to block all email!". Which, could be true. But, it's also an unrealistic and exceedingly feeble argument for an otherwise wholly inferior architecture. @gvs

   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 03:07:11 JST feld

     in reply to

     • gvs
     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @gvs @adiz What metadata are you concerned about?
     
     Are you aware that you can encrypt nearly all the MIME headers? To, From, Date, Subject, etc?
   • Embed this notice
     gvs (gvs@rebelbase.site)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 03:07:13 JST gvs

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     They can be, but they keep and leak metadata. In some places, e-mail logs have to be stored for 2 years. So using your government e-mail account to use deltachat still reveals who you are talking too.
     
     Neither does that argument negate that SimpleX now defaults to https traffic, which you think would be more likely to be wholesale banned then mail?
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 03:36:17 JST feld

     in reply to

     • gvs
     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @adiz @gvs the purpose-built alternatives are failing in the field, but DeltaChat is succeeding. What other evidence do you need?
     Doughnut Lollipop 【記録係】:blobfoxgooglymlem: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     👺防空識別區👹 (adiz@mtl.jinxian.casa)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 03:36:19 JST 👺防空識別區👹

     in reply to

     • gvs

     @feld Nothing is going to convince me that DeltaChat (quirky email, basically) isn't a solution looking for a problem that doesn't perform as well, nor is as capable as, pre-existing, long-matured, well-established, purpose-built alternatives. @gvs

   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 03:45:35 JST feld

     in reply to

     • gvs
     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @gvs @adiz Turns out Simplex using port 443 doesn't make it "difficult to block", because Russia has done it. Not just blocking the known public servers. They have DPI working that detects and blocks Simplex
     
     https://github.com/simplex-chat/simplex-chat/issues/4933
     Doughnut Lollipop 【記録係】:blobfoxgooglymlem: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 03:51:15 JST feld

     in reply to

     • gvs
     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @adiz @gvs are you communicating with people in Russia, Iran, China, Cuba, etc?
   • Embed this notice
     👺防空識別區👹 (adiz@mtl.jinxian.casa)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 03:51:17 JST 👺防空識別區👹

     in reply to

     • gvs

     @feld I don't know anyone outside of some niche Fedi circles who uses or knows what DeltaChat is. Meanwhile I am apart of and familiar to many thriving, populous XMPP, Matrix, and even IRC communities. I don't see any failure "in the field". 🤷 @gvs

   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 03:58:58 JST feld

     in reply to

     • gvs
     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @adiz @gvs Russia or China over IRC is not interesting.
     
     What E2EE are they using successfully?
     
     Matrix and XMPP?
     
     Are they using it directly or are they being forced to use a VPN/Tor to try to connect?
   • Embed this notice
     👺防空識別區👹 (adiz@mtl.jinxian.casa)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 03:58:59 JST 👺防空識別區👹

     in reply to

     • gvs

     @feld Russia and China, yes. Occasionally an Iranian who pops in every few months to say "hi". We don't know anyone who is Cuban. @gvs

   • Embed this notice
     wuhan.bat™ (jae@darkdork.dev)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 04:01:46 JST wuhan.bat™

     in reply to

     • gvs
     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @adiz @feld @gvs
     
     > I don't know anyone outside of some niche Fedi circles who uses or knows what DeltaChat is
     
     maybe because you just hang out on fedi all the time?
     
     > Meanwhile I am apart of and familiar to many thriving, populous XMPP, Matrix, and even IRC communities.
     
     deltachat is just an alternative. if you don't like it or don't want to use it, all good. personally i've found it a plus in my life, and the only use-case for signal now is a couple of clients i've not talked to in a year.
     feld likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     wuhan.bat™ (jae@darkdork.dev)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 04:01:53 JST wuhan.bat™

     in reply to

     • gvs
     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @feld @adiz @gvs russia and china here. over deltachat.
     feld likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 04:21:23 JST feld

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @adiz which protocol? This wasn't clear. DM me the domains if you wouldn't mind
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     👺防空識別區👹 (adiz@mtl.jinxian.casa)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 04:21:25 JST 👺防空識別區👹

     in reply to

     • gvs

     @feld

     >Are they using it directly or are they being forced to use a VPN/Tor to try to connect?

     Directly. Quite straightforward. We've had zero issues. @gvs

   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 05:30:18 JST feld

     in reply to

     • gvs
     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @gvs @adiz
     
     MAIL FROM can always be noreply@
     
     RCPT TO is of no consequence as the DeltaChat accounts which are on Chatmail servers are random/anonymous, and they'll even be ephemeral soon.
   • Embed this notice
     gvs (gvs@rebelbase.site)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 05:30:20 JST gvs

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @feld
     Mail from and RCPT to cannot be encrypted. So all involved mailservers have a record who sends to who, when and size. In some places, those logs have to be kept years.
     @adiz
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 05:33:15 JST feld

     in reply to

     • gvs
     @gvs you keep saying SimpleX is a bigger target with no evidence. Did SimpleX get sued by Russia? DeltaChat did, the court case just concluded today:
     
     https://merlinux.eu/press/2025-05-14-russia-deltachat.pdf
   • Embed this notice
     gvs (gvs@rebelbase.site)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 05:33:17 JST gvs

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @feld
     Which would work fine against deltachat as well (block encrypted mails). SimpleX is just a bigger target
     @adiz
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 06:16:44 JST feld

     in reply to

     • gvs
     @gvs
     
     > You stated that any SMTP can be used for deltachat, so non chatmail servers have to be taken into account as well
     
     Yes that's one of its strengths. They can't really block all possible methods of exfiltrating data securely.
     
     Let's pretend they do successfully figure out how to get every email service in the country to block PGP mail? Delta controls the clients, they can just work around it. Unlikely but possible scenario: just generate random PNGs as attachments to innoculous mails and append the PGP data to the end of the PNG...
     
     What next, they block all email attachments? LOL
   • Embed this notice
     gvs (gvs@rebelbase.site)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 06:16:46 JST gvs

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @feld
     With a valid domain, with an IP logged unless on VPN/tor which works for SimpleX as well.
     
     You stated that any SMTP can be used for deltachat, so non chatmail servers have to be taken into account as well
     @adiz
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 07:26:29 JST feld

     in reply to

     • gvs
     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @adiz @gvs best practice is to use a separate address, preferably a Chatmail server if possible.
     
     But if you can't because you exist in an environment with extreme limitations, use your normal email.
     
     That's it. That's the whole sales pitch. You lose some anonymity and only a little extra metadata is exposed, but still nobody can MITM your messages. Your conversations are still secure, plus you gain a TON of functionality.
     
     Oh, now you want to do realtime collaborative editing of a document? Add the WebXDC app to your chat, and boom E2EE P2P connection established and realtime group text editing activated between all members. No need to use a third party service that may not even be accessible to some people in the chat.
   • Embed this notice
     👺防空識別區👹 (adiz@mtl.jinxian.casa)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 07:26:30 JST 👺防空識別區👹

     in reply to

     • gvs

     @gvs

     >You stated that any SMTP can be used for deltachat, so non chatmail servers have to be taken into account as well

     And this continues to be the cruc of my argument. Everyone shilling DeltaChat does so with the disingenuous argument that "you can just use your existing email!"---which isn't really honest. There are major providers where it doesn't work. Assuming that does work, the recommended "best practice" is to have a separate email address entirely to use with DeltaChat vs. your primary, normal email address. And then, thereafter, to address all the performance issues associated with [*squints*]……trying to use email as an instant messenger platform……, and to utilize all the marketed features supposedly available immediately out of the box, the recommendations and solutions are to spin up, or have an account on, a specialized email stack.

     By the time you do all of this one could otherwise be using an instant messaging protocol made for instant messaging.

     Ultimately, the "sales pitch" is, dare I say, intentionally dishonest. @feld

   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 07:31:47 JST feld

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @adiz
     
     > By the time you do all of this one could otherwise be using an instant messaging protocol made for instant messaging.
     
     Except when that protocol is blocked, but email still works.
     
     If you're happy living in your little bubble where nobody is censoring the protocols you're using, feel free to keep doing whatever you're doing. But your suggested protocols have failed the people the DeltaChat team is helping.
     
     QED
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 07:39:51 JST feld

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @adiz the default deployment is with a tool called "cmdeploy" that is Ansible-ish python which SSHes to the server and does everything, installs the configs from templates, does Acme HTTP-01, etc.
     
     I do not like this because I don't want HTTP-01, I want DNS-01 especially as my original tests were behind NAT and the tooling has some test for connectivity built in and wasn't detecting the public IP properly so that annoyed me.
     
     Updating is as simple as a git pull on the repo and running the same deploy command again.
     
     HOWEVER, as I said I do not like this method so I maintain a separate implementation using a Chef cookbook that does not rely on a Chef server.
     
     I have a video showing the entire deploy process to a fresh Debian VM. It's very fast and simple to do.
     
     Video (only 2 mins long):
     
     https://video.infosec.exchange/w/o9byiaYKCJ8CTgzDLBRdzU
     
     My cookbook repo:
     
     https://github.com/feld/chatmail-cookbook
     
     The official chatmail deploy tool:
     
     https://github.com/chatmail/relay
   • Embed this notice
     👺防空識別區👹 (adiz@mtl.jinxian.casa)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 07:39:52 JST 👺防空識別區👹

     in reply to

     • gvs

     @feld Are all the features advertised functional out of the box on deployment of a ChatMail server? And, is it easy to manage/maintain a ChatMail server (e.g., Prosody XMPP almost literally "just works" and doesn't break with updates)? Genuine question. I am willing to go through the lengths of setting up a ChatMail server if it's so straightforward. @gvs

   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 07:56:11 JST feld

     in reply to

     • gvs
     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @adiz @gvs
     
     > Are all the features advertised functional out of the box on deployment of a ChatMail server?
     
     Majority of the features are in the client. The one thing you get with Chatmail is functional (and secure) push notifications on iOS and Android devices via APNS/FCM. Desktop doesn't need them as IMAP PUSH works there. *Some* Android devices can use IMAP PUSH, but depending on how aggressive the vendor changed Android to kill background processes etc.
     
     > And, is it easy to manage/maintain a ChatMail server
     
     Run package updates, maybe deploy the latest Chatmail changes once a month or so? There are some middleware services in Python that will be rewritten to Rust eventually. A couple of Dovecot/Postfix config tweaks have happened in the last few months as well. It's fairly low maintenance. I have apt Unattended Upgrades enabled on my servers so they take care of themselves including rebooting as necessary.
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 08:15:35 JST feld

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @adiz someone is working on porting all the Chatmail functionality to Mox so it's just literally a single binary deployment
   • Embed this notice
     👺防空識別區👹 (adiz@mtl.jinxian.casa)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 08:15:36 JST 👺防空識別區👹

     in reply to

     @feld I'll bookmark this. I just read through the GitHub page. A lot more stuff than I figured ahead of time.

     By comparison, on Debian, to get Prosody (XMPP) working you:

     sudo apt update sudo apt install prosody -y

     >setup DNS records >open the ports >modify the Prosody config >pull certificates >import certificates

     sudo prosodyctl check config

     If everything looks good:

     sudo systemctl enable prosody.service && sudo systemctl restart prosody.service

     Done! You're online. Start issuing/registering accounts and to chat with people! It's that easy. Extremely straightforward. Prosody has an update? apt takes care of that with sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y, just as it does with every other ordinary binary package. I have some transports and bridges setup that ship as Docker containers. Equally as straightforward and painless to get setup and running.

     When I upgrade from Debian 12 to Debian 13, guess what? Everything is just going to work. If I have to move my service to a new machine I just copy the Prosody directory contents over and import the PostgreSQL database. So simple. So straightforward. So easy to manage. I like that.

   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 08:43:52 JST feld

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @adiz the good news is that by then it doesn't matter, there won't be much of a purpose of self-hosting because your client will automatically learn of all the available Chatmail servers and self-register ephemeral email accounts and jump between them completely transparent to the user.
     
     At that point deploying Chatmail relays is just strengthening the overall network
   • Embed this notice
     👺防空識別區👹 (adiz@mtl.jinxian.casa)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 08:43:54 JST 👺防空識別區👹

     in reply to

     @feld Well, maybe when that day comes and it's equally as painless to get up and running I'll try it out.

   • Embed this notice
     👺防空識別區👹 (adiz@mtl.jinxian.casa)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 08:50:34 JST 👺防空識別區👹

     in reply to

     @feld

     >At that point deploying Chatmail relays is just strengthening the overall network

     If it becomes that easy (i.e., as easy as setting up an XMPP service, e.g.: Prosody) then I'd deploy and maintain a ChatMail server solely to strengthen the network even if I don't utilize the service itself.

     feld likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Thursday, 15-May-2025 08:51:13 JST feld

     in reply to

     • 👺防空識別區👹
     @adiz tbh I found Prodody to be a pain in the ass to setup, I never even got attachments/HTTP working right after hours
     
     MongooseIM/eJabberd was easier, but it still sucks IMO