Sup is a New Messaging App by the Creator of Pixelfed
Daniel Supernault, creator of Pixelfed, announced recently that he’s working on a new messaging app called Sup. Details are sparse for the moment, as it’s a new initiative under Pixelfed’s umbrella. So far, a few interesting things have been revealed to us.
The biggest thing to note about the new messenger, by far, is that the developer intends to provide end-to-end encryption. More impressively, the app is intended to work with any Fediverse account.
sup. is an open source encrypted fediverse instant messenger, similar to whatsapp, made by pixelfed.
The beta will be launching later this month, and btw most fediverse accounts will work, not just Pixelfed ?
The proposed encryption scheme is the Messaging Layer Security protocol, a proposed standard by the Internet Engineering Task Force. MLS is notable for the fact that it’s based on Signal, and makes use of their Double Rachet algorithm.
There are definitely some open questions about how Sup works with the rest of the Fediverse. Do users just sign in to a service via an OAuth dance with their Fediverse accounts? Do the messages federate over ActivityPub? Does my server store my messages, or does just the app store those?
For now, we don’t know the answers to these questions, and they’re important considerations. With that being said, we’re excited about this new project, and can’t wait to try it out!
OH BOY! ANOTHER MESSENGER!
Huh, neat. If you’re curious about the authentication thing, look into how Pixelfed is doing it, he announced that Pixelfed would allow log in from a Mastodon account a few months ago, with the rest of the Fediverse to follow in the future.
@news
That’s incorrect. MLS does not use Signal’s double ratchet. It uses a ratchet tree, which is very different.
If this works without requiring a phone number, is E2E encrypted, open-source and doesn’t have the meta-data tracking issues that existing messaging apps (all of which I’m guessing is the case given dansup is developing it) then I am TOTALLY IN! I’ve not owned a phone for more than a decade now but use Telegram on a tablet to keep in touch with friends. It’s totally not ideal but is the only solution that works well enough for now. I think this would also be a fantastic way of getting a lot of people not currently on it on the Fediverse. Sup Dan!
@news This sounds amazing! Would love to hear some updates on this.