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Comment by kkl | Hacker News Reader

Most interesting e2e projects have abandoned email, specifically SMTP, as a secure messaging platform. I would look outside SMTP-based solutions if I were to start using a different project (assuming doing so is an option... I hope it is!).

My recommendation here is Signal: https://whispersystems.org/

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A big problem is that a lot of this is driven less by people who have a genuine need for encrypted communication and more by people who want one on principle. And the latter tend to include the people who are more likely to try The Next New Thing.

And it also makes sense. A lot of these services are from companies that need to make money. And there isn't much money in the journalists and dissidents who don't have a bespoke solution.

Signal is nice, and I use it. But it's an instant messaging system. Email has different use cases.

I think what we're going to need is a new, non-SMTP protocol, which preserves all of the good things about email, while providing e2e encryption and (pseudonymous) identity assurance. I don't know enough to be involved in designing that protocol, though, other than saying what I want to see as an end-user.

pond has interesting properties, I think the next generation mail will have to implement some of those ideas.

and Signal/WhatsApp comes to replace (and kill) xmpp, not email. Another issue is the generational shift away from email, that is only for Spam and Work, more and more everytime...

Since Pond is hard to search for, [link attached][0].

[0]: https://github.com/agl/pond

What properties does email have that asynchronous messaging services (e.g. Signal) do not?

Cross-platform (Chrome web-apps don't count), Federated, Distributed, to name a few. The reason email is so entrenched is probably because of these reasons entirely. Being able to send a message from any provider to any provider certainly helped spread adoption easily.

There are protocol properties, and client properties. I think some of both are important.

### Protocol

* Easily federated

* Identifiers can be memorable/meaningful (unlike phone numbers) while still being globally unique (thanks to federation)

* Device independent (not tied to a phone number, can generally use the same account on different devices)

* Can contact people you don't know/haven't met (this is possible with Signal, but they'd have to publicly share their personal cell phone number, which is a no-go).

### Client

* Optimized for longer-form, less immediate messaging (folders, drafts, rich text)

* MIME attachments (Signal supports only a limited number of predefined types of attachments)

I feel like you could probably layer an email-equivalent on top of Matrix, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

The author of the article mentions Signal as well, but how do you handle communication from a laptop or desktop computer and/or with people who don't own an Android or IOS smartphone?

Signal does have a desktop application. I believe you can also register a Signal account using a phone number from a service like Twilio. I'm not 100% sure that will work with Signal desktop though.

https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal-desktop/

Signal in a chrome app can pair to signal on android/IOS. But I don't believe you can use chrome only. The chrome app just waits for you to pair with a phone and can't send/receive messages until you do so.

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