Link: https://wedistribute.org/2026/02/fediverse-e2ee-coming/

Important progress has been made regarding bringing MLS end-to-end encryption to the ActivityPub protocol, with developers already building implementations and providing feedback to a future version of the protocol spec.

Well now this sounds interesting. And I assume it's open source?

MLS will eventually be included in all messengers.

It was initially introduced by Wire as an RFC, but they fumbled the federation by making it an enterprise only feature. Because of that, other messengers will do the federating for them.
iMessage, Google Messenger, Matrix, and Germ DM (Bluesky) do or partly have it implemented.

I thought we already had Matrix

Matrix is decentralized but its not federating in a way like activity pub is doing

Finally I can discuss my scat fetish with my fellow scat enthusiasts away from the prying eyes of the NSA!

Nyeh-heh heh heeh!

What do you mean?

And what benefit justifies yet another standard?

Why?

What benefit does this have over Signal/Matrix?

The article just says "improvements".

ActivityPub isn't the only way to federate.
Matrix is federating the same way email does. Anyone can spin up their own server. And if they want anyone can spin up their own software. That's what federation is. Different servers agreeing on how to communicate with each other.

How so? It's certainly very similar.

The matrix protocol enables federation between different instances running different homeservers between users using different clients.

We do.

This is for activitypub DMs.

That's what I mean.
The headline is a lie.

We should always have more alternatives to chose from - good to see so many players.

Major League Soccer messaging? Let’s goooo

If I say tacos coming soon, it doesn't mean I invented tacos, just that there will be new tacos I guess

why? because it would be cool if only intended recipients are able to view sent messages.

I'll take one

That's not really going to be the case if you're using a website instead of an audited app like signal/matrix.

good news everybody!

But we already have tacos.
If you say "Tacos are coming soon". And we already have tacos. I'd say "What do you mean? Tacos are already here. Do we need more tacos?"

that argument doesn't hold. you're letting perfect be the enemy of good-and if you truly believe that, then you wouldn't be recommending Matrix which has web clients, see https://app.element.io/

Do you just ask if we need more tacos? The answer is always yes... Where is your insatiable hunger?

But, what about Session? It's decentralized, E2EE, uses Lokinet, seems pretty solid, no?

No phone, email, or other info needed to sign up

https://getsession.org/

In this day and age we need as many open source e2e encrypted alternatives as possible.

from what i can tell, mls supports much larger group chats (50k users) whereas i assume signal would struggle.

my chat of 10 people i signal seems just as secure, if i am reading right.

Let's gooooooo

I heard this is the line for tacos.

Lines long as 2, and they only come three ways. Steak, cilantro, lime, cheese with your choice of sauce... Chicken chipotle mixed Mexican blend cheese, and cilantro lime, rice-cauliflower.

Sides are open as a bar, self serve.

Waiting for pizza

If anyone ever asks "Do we need more tacos?" it becomes your responsibility to slap this individual. Because obviously yes. The answer is ALWAYS yes. Always more tacos. Always.

Tacos become pizza toppings. Full size tacos, on top of your pizza.

@benpate@mastodon.technology that's amazingly quick work after just under four weeks. I'm looking forward to the result.

No that's decentralization, federating is when you can share the info natively outside the platform.

What??? I thought being part of Federation meant being part of the WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION!

OOOOH YEAH, SEE I'M ALWAYS THINKIN THINKIN THINKIN, YEAH. AND WHEN IT'S ALL SAID AND DONE, WE DO THING IN THE RING! DIG IT! THE TOWER OF POWER TOO SWEET TO BE SOUR, FUNKY LIKE A MONKEY! OOOOOOH YEEEAAAHHHH!!!!

Pomp and circumstance plays over the house speakers

ELIZABETH!!!

But all those clients are matrix, not say some discord, some fluxer, some stoat, etc.

Matrix does not connect natively to discord as an example, every user of a matrix protocol is still within matrix

You cannot, two totally different protocols

And XMPP before it, even for e2ee messaging.
At least this is a slightly different use case.

One benefit is that Signal controls all the infrastructure and some people do not like that. Sure, you could also spin up a Matrix home server, but that isn’t an ideal solution for everyone either. Some people want to do messaging via their existing ActivityPub infrastructure and that’s OK.

It's not, the demo video actually shows that being one such use case. There's nothing stopping anyone from writing a chat service in ActivityPub. But this can also apply to statuses, media, all kinds of other stuff.

So, I used messaging here in the broad sense. One possible application for it is instant messaging, which there are ActivityPub implementations out there doing that. But it can also be used for statuses or pretty much anything else that gets federated.

Now that's the insatiable appetite I know. No tacos, no sandwich, no cheese infested bread substances like pizza left behind. I will hate my stomach as it fattens, but so long will it reign. A Pad Thai cheeseburger might kill a man,but it only has one bad quality. Availability

That actually sounds cool, I wonder if they could support Hidden containers, so the same message can be decypted to different messages by different users.

All activitypub platforms are activity pub. Also, matrix is a protocol, not a client. There's tons of clients for matrix (element/element x being the main one).

Activitypub doesn't connect natively to my toaster.

Any we client including Matrix webclient is incredibly vulnerable to the server just injecting JS and reading your messages.

Like there is no point of E2E encryption in Twitter, Musk can read your messages if you open them on any device he can execute arbitrary code on.

share the info natively outside the platform.

I'm not even sure that makes sense.
Federating is based on protocols not platforms. And what does it mean to share natively if not using the protocol?

ActivityPub is only one of a number of federated protocols.
One notably unsuited to instant messaging.

The Fediverse isn't federated.

All those clients are ActivityPub, not say some Twitter, some Facebook, some Bluesky, etc.

How is that different?