Items tagged with: chatmail

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Items tagged with: chatmail


#Signal took a huge bet that running on US big-tech toxic infrastructure is fine because its groundbreaking and industry-shaping cryptography is crafted to neutralize it and keep users safe.

But is it really feasible to live on toxic infrastructure in the longer run?

#deltachat rather takes a bet on the massive e-mail server network and interoperable protocols, and on #chatmail servers which enforce message encryption and metadata-minimization.

Delta is for when centralization turns sour.


There is no shortage of startups and enterprises animated by, or outright proclaiming, replacing e-mail as the de-facto open internet messaging standard. VC Investors are forever fascinated by funding such endeavours. #matrix #simplex #slack etc are examples.

#deltachat endorses e-mail but reconfigures and repurposes it to serve for interoperable instant messaging. The #chatmail server network relays end to end encrypted e-mail only, and servers are reduced to dumb store-and-forward relays.


The downside of our project approach was that we often got experts being very dismissive on re-using email and #OpenPGP ... and there still is some opposition which often subsides when actually trying #deltachat and #chatmail, looking at security audits and our strong usable security focus.

There may also be surprising upsides. The UK "Online Safety Bill" which attacks end-to-end encryption integrity seems to not apply for ... e-mail. Because everyone knows, e-mail is unencrypted, right? :)


With #deltachat #chatmail and #webxdc developments we aim to instigate a new modern foundation for secure E-Mail and a resilient Web without platforms. We are building a kind of #minecraft system for modern decentralized messaging.

But who are we building it for?

For all who need reliable trustable means of modern private communication.

While our work needs hackers and experts it's not designed for them. @tante raises interesting and important related thoughts tante.cc/2025/03/03/who-is-fre…


#deltachat is a minority messenger today and that's just fine for now. Changes often come from the precarious fringe which has to make ends meet, under hostile circumstances. Our approaches are aiming to provide working software that does its damn job. No unable to decrypt, no going for VC/Blockchain money, no bending the knee and no endorsing of corporate platforms. The #chatmail server network implements #interoperable #cryptography , does away with shady spam lists, catering for #Gmail etc


No coins, no chains, no big machinery but plain, efficient and scalable decentralization, leveraging the largest open internet messaging network ever created by humans ... made safe, fast and resource efficient with #chatmail servers using strong and audited #interoperable #cryptography. It just works (tm) in many places where Signal and WhatsApp fail today. It's time to reclaim "decentralization" from techbros, insist on real-life #resilience and trust this cute figure from @Xeniax :)




@ax3 yes, our #chatmail #deltachat and #webxdc related talks were recorded but not sure when they get published or how well the recording worked.


As an excellent programmer once noted: constraints induce creativity and focused design. Delta Chat has been running against classic e-mail provider constraints for years and had to evolve its code to work against these constraints (rate limits, spam filters, signups, delays etc) and thus we were uniquely positioned to create a minimal #chatmail server template that beats Gmail, Outlook, iCloud etc regarding security, performance and efficiency. It's a similar story with #deepseek if you will.


A main technical and economic difference to #matrix servers/clients:
The family of #deltachat apps uses #chatmail servers as ephemeral message transports that know nothing and forget everything: Servers don't store group metadata or cryptographic identities and delete messages after download by default. In effect, a 30EUR/month #chatmail server with 10K's of active users hums along with 2% IO and CPU pressure, 1GB RAM and negligible disk usage. No Pro-version or Kubernetes needed to scale ;)


It is possible for #chatmail users to communicate with classic email users who have published their public key.

You just have to do manual chatmail registration, save your login details and private key securely, and use it with something that supports #pgp like #Thunderbird or #Mailvelope.


Note to my-self and other people like me:
Read the #deltachat help at delta.chat/en/help it's all perfectly explained there in easy to follow language. It's even translated to various different languages already.
The number one answer for me is that there are #deltachat specific so called #chatmail servers suitable for anonymous instant messaging over email.
So eventhough I like to self host my emails, I think I'll go with existing #chatmail server at least initially.


Much of what is commonly said about #email and #openpgp is wrong. It can very well be fast and secure and that's a claim backed by working code and deployments and audits (#chatmail servers and the #deltachat family of apps). There is no both-sides-have-opinions game to be played here. Internet-scale messaging alternatives are arguably either centralized or brittle. There is however much room for further improvements including deep changes in how we commonly understand email today. Stay tuned :)


Upcoming events:

We'll give two talks at #FOSSDEM about #chatmail and #deltachat in the modern email devroom, on Saturday late afternoon: fosdem.org/2025/schedule/track…

The friday before, we'll probably also appear and talk about about #webxdc at the #Matrix barcamp.

Sunday morning, our friends from @n0iroh namely @flub, will give a talk about the P2P-iroh network architecture fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event…

Otherwise, you'll find us mostly around #OFFDEM for chatting and more ad-hoc sessions.


We know of many #chatmail servers from Vladivostok to the US but the one from @adam_jurkiewicz might have the most intriguing design jurkiewicz.chat/ :)

With mobile Delta Chat apps, a chatmail web site allows users to click a link to create an instant chatmail profile without asking any personal data. No permission needed from Delta Chat developers to run a server, and we never learn e-mail or IP addresses from their users.

Decentralized interoperable onboarding with secure #E2EE :)


Preventing enshittificatiom with the "Ulysses pact" from @pluralistic pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/uly…

We consider our efforts aligned: #deltachat #chatmail and #webxdc implement "right to exit" on all levels of our decentralized messaging project.

- deploy your own servers permission free and interoperable with all e-mail servers ("federation mast")
- all apps and libraries and server components are 100% Foss
- interactive chat-shared web-apps can be used in other messengers

#righttoexit


Running #chatmail servers is <2h effort per month, according to an ad-hoc poll with 10 operators responding. Some have 10Ks of #deltachat users. Typically 300MB ram is used and max 60gb disc space per server. And all interoperate safely based on high security standards (DKIM and TLS enforced, and only no-metadata #openpgp encrypted messages allowed) .... with typically 0.5 secs end-to-end delivery. Who said again that email is insecure, cumbersome and slow? :)


Before you ask, this is not standalone. For that someone would need to compile #deltachat_core to wasm and setup some WebSocket proxy because websites are not allowed to open raw TCP connections which are the basis of IMAP and SMTP.

But not impossible, as we could decide to make such a "WebSocket to IMAP/SMTP"-proxy part of the #chatmail project.



#deltachat_desktop version 1.46.0 is now released:

🐣 New Onboarding: ⚡️Sign up to secure fast #chatmail servers or use classic e-mail servers

💻 Collapse chat list on small screens or window sizes
📋 Accept images from clipboard in QR reader
🖼️✂️ Image cropper for profile image selector
📌 Webxdc windows now remember their last position and size
🚀 Shorter startup times on newer Mac (through native ARM builds)

get.delta.chat

view exact rollout status at github.com/deltachat/deltachat…

#deltachat


The #EUGoingDark 42-point plan for after the election has it all: breaking e2e encryption, "lawful" data retention, prohibiting encrypting metadata, threatening jail to developers for non compliance ..... If we thought authoritarian political currents are moving against privacy then this is an entirely new level ... patrick-breyer.de/en/first-ins…

P.s. we need more #chatmail servers and contributors so that our #deltachat app-dev conglomerate provides resilience against such authoritarian pipe dreams


A major milestone in our 6+ years long project history: With the rolling 1.46 #deltachat app releases you can start chatting without a pre-existing e-mail address, and benefit from push notifications (instant message delivery) also on Android. We also highlight ways to get in contact with bots and humans, and how #chatmail makes e-mail cheap again delta.chat/en/2024-05-31-insta…


SimpleX recibe venture capital, si recuerdo bien, yo no me aferraría mucho a su futuro, mira ejemplos recientes como #Skiff (blog.cryptpad.org/2024/02/15/n…)

También, lo de identificadores anónimos es algo que se puede conseguir en otras plataformas, por ejemplo en Delta Chat con instancias de #chatmail

De las app P2P creo #Jami es la más recomendable


We just refined the user facing "download" page to include instant #chatmail onboarding instructions get.delta.chat

Did you know there also are first independent #chatmail setups from friendly third parties, eg mehl.cloud and mailchat.pl/ all nicely interoperable and fast?

#chatmail actively develops here github.com/deltachat/chatmail/… ....


#chatmail is not a replacement for Whatsapp in the traditional sense. It's a small machine that can be tweaked in many ways. The tweakability of the e-mail system is in it's DNA and practises ... that is the antithesis to WA if you like :) What drives nine.testrun.org, the first public chatmail service, is fully visible at github.com/deltachat/chatmail -- a minimalist config and setup, some python modules and tests, standard postfix/dovecot. co-incidentally pretty fast but there is a twist ;)


Today, we are unveiling chatmail services, making onboarding with #deltachat a breeze, with peace of mind.

#chatmail marks a major milestone, answering the practical question of "where can i get a deltachat-ready account" for myself and friends?

Read more on delta.chat/en/2023-12-13-chatm…