@gargron wants to replace the current scope limited #Mastodon fake direct messages with real DMs, E2E encrypted using OLM (an implementation of Signal’s encryption). Good. People have sent personally identifying information and financial data across fake DMs, not aware that others could accidentally see the contents.

Bad: Scope limited posts are going away entirely. SLPs / SLMs are useful. They are just regular messages, but sent only to the @mentioned users. That could be the foundation for something like #Diaspora’s Aspects. If there’s no pretense that they are private, and they are treated and displayed like other posts, they are good.

The issue has always been the name. Pretending SLMs are DMs means people send each other private information. I don’t believe any instance admins would intentionally read them or misuse information in such posts, but having that information in your database could be bad news when “John Q Cracker” breaks into the server.

@trnwh@mastodon.social