Nostr Web Client

The same things that's true of End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) on a centralised service is also true of Vanishing Messages. You have to trust the service operators to honour the promises made by the app. But if you trust the service operators , why do you need E2EE or Vanishing Messages? So again, adding these features to centralised services is just privacy theatre. Nothing more.

So what about decentralised networks?

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Strypey 2y ago

In a decentralised network, unlike a centralised service, it is possible to confirm that End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) is working.

Because if two servers aren't both implementing the E2EE protocol properly, it just won't work. The messages won't sent, or they won't be delivered, or they won't be decrypted, or whatever. The need to communicate between two servers keeps the operators of both honest.

So what about Vanishing Messages then?

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Discussion

Strypey 2y ago

One problem with Vanishing Messages in decentralised networks is that you have to trust that the server(s) you're sending messages to will honour whatever requests you send them later about those messages. Including requests to delete them.

A server could send back a receipt claiming to have deleted the message, but how do you really know? Maybe it did delete the message from the chat, but kept a copy in the database? Or copied it to another database.

You just have to trust it.

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