Reflections: The ecosystem is moving

Moxie Marlinspike · 10 May 2016

Others here said this too

Encryption people have to switch on protects almost nobody; what protects people is what a service turns on for everyone.

Their wordsBy contrast, WhatsApp was able to introduce end-to-end encryption to over a billion users with a single software update.

Also said by Matthew Green

Read the piece on signal.org ↗

3 korrents from this piece ↓

Moxie Marlinspike did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
A federated protocol freezes in time, so a messenger that has to keep up with the ecosystem cannot be federated.

Their wordsNothing about any of the protocols we’ve developed requires centralization; it’s entirely possible to build a federated Signal Protocol-based messenger, but I no longer believe that it is possible to build a competitive federated messenger at all.
Our reading
Self-hosted email will never be end-to-end encrypted, and federation is the reason.

Their wordsSo while it’s nice that I’m able to host my own email, that’s also the reason why my email isn’t end-to-end encrypted, and probably never will be.
Our reading
Encryption people have to switch on protects almost nobody; what protects people is what a service turns on for everyone.
Mental modelPositioning

Their wordsBy contrast, WhatsApp was able to introduce end-to-end encryption to over a billion users with a single software update.

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