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Salon I: End-to-End Encryption in ActivityPub - 2024 Protocol Symposium

Talk Evan Prodromou, Tom Coates
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Evan Prodromou and Tom Coates present their Summer of Protocols research on integrating end-to-end encryption into ActivityPub, arguing that the fediverse's low-trust server operators and high-risk user base (LGBTQ users, activists, infosec community) make E2E encryption necessary despite the protocol's original email-like trust assumptions. They explain why they chose Messaging Layer Security (MLS) over alternatives like PGP, Signal's protocol, or OTR—citing MLS's royalty-free IETF standard status and scalability—and propose a new ActivityPub extension adding a key store and groups mechanism, while Coates details UI challenges around key management, archive restoration, and segregating encrypted from unencrypted messages.

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activitypub-extension-design case-study end-to-end-encrypted-archive-restoration messaging-layer-security-mls protocols public-key-encryptionkey-management-ui research signal-protocol-vs-mls-tradeoffs symposium-2024 technology