I thought we already had Matrix
this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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And XMPP before it, even for e2ee messaging.
At least this is a slightly different use case.
Matrix is decentralized but its not federating in a way like activity pub is doing
ActivityPub isn't the only way to federate.
It's 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.
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!!!
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How so? It's certainly very similar.
The matrix protocol enables federation between different instances running different homeservers between users using different clients.
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What do you mean?
And what benefit justifies yet another standard?
In this day and age we need as many open source e2e encrypted alternatives as possible.
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Matrix is a poor choice from a cryptographic perspective. With some serious issues historically (some of which are still unfixed to this day), and an extremely poor response to disclosures.
https://soatok.blog/2026/02/17/cryptographic-issues-in-matrixs-rust-library-vodozemac/
Well now this sounds interesting. And I assume it's open source?
It seems so, as the project (Emissary) is using the GNU Affero GPL.
🤯 That gave me pause. What made you ask (would non-FOSS even be an option for anything ActivityPub)?
this is misleading and sensationalistic. if emissary implements e2ee, it's not "e2ee for the fediverse", it's " e2ee for emissary users". did mastodon talk about e2ee? did lemmy?
also the MLS draft (supposedly "better than signal ") proposes for trusted key exchange either " trust the server" (lmao), use a centralized key authority (wow) or have users manually verify their keys out of band (so basically use matrix to assure your chat is encrypted). source: https://swicg.github.io/activitypub-e2ee/architectural-variations.html#validating-end-to-end-encryption
fedi devs need to stop clickbaiting, and fedi users should learn a bit more about their protocol to avoid getting misled this way
I felt like a 90 year old grandma reading this.
You and me both.
But after pondering the orbs for a minute I think they're saying, that it's just Emissary trying to get E2EE working and not Fediverse as a whole.
And they follow with some objection with the proposed draft. I can only comment on the 3rd one, it basically mean you need other channel of communication to manually compare fingerprint (i.e via Matrix/Signal) to make sure your activities on Emissary is actually encrypted, maybe lol.
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I have a bit of an issue with the title, considering federated end to end encrypted messaging has existed since, at the latest, 1991.
What's the messaging protocol?
Pgp is protocol agnostic, you can use it over email, xmpp, irc... Over pretty much anything that supports plugins.
It's usually used for email tho.
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.
We should always have more alternatives to chose from - good to see so many players.
Finally I can discuss my scat fetish with my fellow scat enthusiasts away from the prying eyes of the NSA!
Nyeh-heh heh heeh!
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Unable to decrypt this message
@benpate@mastodon.technology that's amazingly quick work after just under four weeks. I'm looking forward to the result.
Fake journalists not even bothering to google that XMPP exists #10496839485.
This is about implementing E2EE directly into ActivityPub, so that has nothing to do with this.
Why?
What benefit does this have over Signal/Matrix?
The article just says "improvements".
why? because it would be cool if only intended recipients are able to view sent messages.
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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.
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.
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Major League Soccer messaging? Let’s goooo
Let's gooooooo
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