Just use OTR... Just use Signal protocol... Just use a server... The problem of unstoppable, private group messaging is SO much bigger and SO much harder than anyone gives it credit for (including me). There are many shortcuts. There are many half-baked solutions that might get short-term adoption. Building the thing right has pushed me to the limit many times over the last few years. And yet, I'm still here. Still learning, still building. I'm not going to give up, and I'm not going to cut corners.

Replies (14)

Yeah there's always a balance between the "best" and the "good enough"... I'm on Signal but it's a lift to get most of my "normie" friends and family on there. What's nice these days is most modern phones' SMS will support RCS chat, so at least that's end-to-end encrypted.
ThreexD 's avatar
ThreexD 1 month ago
From Wikipedia Off-the-record messaging (OTR) is a cryptographic protocol that provides encryption for instant messaging conversations. OTR uses a combination of AES symmetric-key algorithm with 128 bits key length, the Diffie–Hellman key exchange with 1536 bits group size, and the SHA-1 hash function. In addition to authentication and encryption, OTR provides forward secrecy and malleable encryption.
Martin Lowe's avatar
Martin Lowe 1 month ago
Network effects seems to be the big problem though. It just baffles me that for the past 4 years, I’ve been in a group chat filled to the brim with privacy minded coders …on telegram. Several attempts to move it somewhere else (anywhere would be better), but in the end, we just stay where we are, because, well, that’s where we are.