Follow

as far as i can see, client-side e2e encryption in the browser requires *a bunch* of changes to browser tech?

we can't do it with cookies holding the private keys, since many people block cookie usage & cookies are readable by anyone. we'd need to have local storage that the server authenticates for, otherwise any server would be able to read out the private key from storage via js & send it to the attacking server…

but maybe there's some obscure way to route around those concerns?

but in that case, I'd worry about bugs in the obscure implementation of that feature.

how do whatsapp/signal/telegram desktop clients work? you'd basically either need to transfer the private key (in which case the encryption isn't e2e anymore?), or generate new keys for every device.

@niplav e2e encryption in the browser (protonmail, element) is bollocks, the site serving the page can just inject a little script to snoop on your decrypted messages, plus it opens up the possibility of xss attacks
@skadi @niplav it's bollocks first and foremost because you need to store the key on your computer, and sites aren't very good at this.
Sign in to participate in the conversation
Mastodon

a Schelling point for those who seek one