They are no more safe than sending a message like this :). Except you would be the only person it’s targeted for. besides the admins of both instances can read them as well.
Which is why I’m the web interface it says it’s not safe/e2e encrypted.
Worried about it? Add a matrix handle to your profile and then it enables a “send a secure message” button in the UI. And redirects people to use matrix to send messages to you
Oh shit that matrix feature is real cool. Thanks for sharing.
besides the admins of both instances can read them as well.
What?
Wait until you hear about the people hosting your email
Haha, love the image. I think everyone feels that way the first time they learn it.
End to end encrypt emails whenever you can too. Now, getting those you communicate with to implement and utilize pgp? That’s a whole other battle.
Nothing on lemmy is private. Your instance is just hosted on a server, and in this instance that server is essentially just someone elses computer. Anything you do or say on the server can be viewed by the admin and whoever they decide to delegate access to.
This is true for practically every online service ever.
This is true for practically every online service ever.
Sorry i have to correct this statement. Unless all encryption can be broken one day (which is a different discussion), end-to-end encryption can be seen as private … if both parties can trust each other to keep it so.
One can see if a service/app does e2ee if they (best) ask you to enter your public key (and only that) which will be shared to others to enable them to encrypt messages to you (such PMs can only get decrypted with your private key which is stored nowhere but on your own devices), and verify signatures done using your privkey. In the second-best case, an application will generate a key pair on your device and instruct you to store away the private key it just generated somewhere safe and protected by a long passphrase because if you lose it your PMs can not be recovered.Interestingly, the ActivityPub protocol and IIRC also the Lemmy database have a “public key” field which could be used for e2ee purposes but the functionality is just not implemented.
the admin of your Instance has full access to your account as they have full access to the database that holds your dms
Yeah, really it would be surprising to me if this wasn’t the case.
Oh ok, thanks!
I didn’t know about the matrix feature, thank you!
Didn’t know about the Matrix integration. Thanks!
Short answer: Unsafe
Long answer: UNSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAFFFFFFFFFEEEEEEEEEEFE
Middle answer?
Unsmatrixafe
DMs are basically comments without a post and only one regular user can see it. No encryption, and it can be viewed by admins. (Private message reporting is a thing)
- It is not unsafe.
- It is not 100% private. Admins can read your messages if they choose to investigate your messages.
- It will not get blasted out to the whole fediverse; just to the recipient you indicated. (Unless an admin from the previous point reads your message and publishes it publicly on the fediverse)
- You do not get to do anything naughty with it; expect to be caught if you break the rules.
It is not unsafe.
It is not 100% private. Admins can read your messages if they choose to investigate your messages.These points contradict one another.
How so? The message is safely delivered solely to the intended recipient, albeit in plain text (not private).
If there’s anywhere that the commonly used email analogy fits, I think it would be here
Safe and private are synonyms in this context.
I disagree.
Users likely trust their instances adminsUnless I run a Lemmy instance myself (which is possible), I have zero reason to trust an instance’s admins.
Even if my instance’s admin happens to be the founder of privacyguides.org, that doesn’t mean he will never read any “private” messages (or be forced by someone else to hand them over).
if you don’t trust the instance why would you use it? 🤨
Even if I did fully trust my instance, I also would have to trust any instance I message with.
I personally just use Lemmy for public comments.
What definition of safe are you using which makes a private messaging system without privacy safe? What would have to occur for it to become unsafe, if not being private does not make it unsafe in your eyes?
No; they don’t. You just wanted to be a reply guy.
They absolutely do. A private messaging system which is not private is the definition of unsafe. Especially in the context of a post on [email protected]
It does what it claims to do, it’s just that what it claims to do is clearly not complete privacy.
If something claims to be unsafe and delivers, that doesn’t make it any more safe.
Anyone remember the days when they were called PMs? They are least used the word Private in the acronym.
What does DM even mean?
Direct Message. As opposed to Private Message.
Services at least acknowledge that the messages aren’t private, which is an improvement I guess.
Yes, and when we used the term “programs” instead of “apps” for everything.
Let’s go even farther back and say they were all “applications”
Not safe at all because it was not designed to be, it even tells you as much. Use them to exchange e2ee contacts and then use that.
@HiddenLayer5 @Kidplayer_666 U can use it to privately talk as much as ur comfortable with it going public.
I don’t know any of the technical details, but my understanding is they’re very unsafe. Our instance has a warning recommending that you take conversations involving sensitive information to Matrix
I dont think they’re supposed to be any safe at all. As part of our board culture we’re to expect that DMs offer no security, and to use other platforms if it’s a concern.
