After three intense months of work from more than a dozen contributors, #deltachat 2.48 releases are rolling.

[delta@chaos.social]

After three intense months of work from more than a dozen contributors, #deltachat 2.48 releases are rolling. Maybe the most feature-packed releases ever?

- "zero metadata" messaging

- native Audio/Video calls on Android and iOS, as well as UbuntuTouch

- Group and Channel descriptions

- A new background audio player

- Revamped Download-on-Demand

and, last but not least, the long-awaited next-generation of messaging resiliency through "multi-path" routing ....

Delta Chat: Zero metadata, group descriptions, native audio/video calls and much more!

With the latest 2.48+ releases, a chat message reveals close to zero metadata to servers. For cryptographers and messenger enthusiasts, here are the key points on how we turned email very close to ...

(delta.chat)

[lucseleventje@toot.community]

@delta Wow!

[goetz@freiburg.social]

@delta Ups, and what if i already enabled (and added) additional relays with 2.43 and I want to upgrade to 2.48 (where the rel-notes state "Ensure all your devices are upgraded to version 2.48 or later before enabling this feature.")

[delta@chaos.social]

@goetz this should work fine but it's better to upgrade still. Some details are better co-ordinated. But nothing bad or irreversible should happen if you use 2.43 and 2.48 side by side.

[delta@chaos.social]

@zaire we minimized metadata in prior steps, but only this release goes all the way. Maybe read the post for more context.

[severin@hci.social]

@delta looks like an impressive release! Audio/video calls based on WebRTC 🤩 Congrats to the devs! imho, the last remaing hurdle for much greater reach for deltachat is contact discovery. Any plans/ideas about that?

[onlykievv@bonito.cafe]

@delta a job well done, I was waiting for the support for audio and video calls, thank you very much to the developers.

[delta@chaos.social]

@severin thanks! Unfortunately, it is not likely the apps will offer contact discovery themselves. It would bring #deltachat closer to being a social media app, and invite spam and abuse which we are not prepared to handle due to the decentralized nature of our efforts. We do not know, mediate or see any interactions between users, an providing central discovery would break that privacy property.

[kbruen@procial.tchncs.de]

@delta@chaos.social @zaire@fedi.absturztau.be It doesn't really go "all the way" though. Just because the email address is random, it doesn't make it unbreakable: it's still a unique and persistent identifier.

[jaseg@chaos.social]

@delta please correct me if i’m wrong. from your post it sound like what you call “zero metadata” isn’t metadata resistant in the sense that it doesn’t leak timing patterns to relay/mta or network adversaries, right?

[onkelbobbywhite@mastodon.social]

@delta @severin When I recommend a Delta/Arcane, it's always one of the arguments why this is better than Whatsapp and Signal, and underlines the data protection is written big.

[delta@chaos.social]

@goetz You can "hide" all relays but one for now, this way all your contacts will send only to one relay and not trigger the bug in 2.43. This is actually done automatically during upgrade, by default all relays except the primary one are hidden right after upgrade, so you don't need to do anything.

[delta@chaos.social]

@jaseg yes, it's about message header metadata, and the fact that no cryptographic identities are visible on the transport layer, making it hard for hostile servers to track anything when users change relays. This blog post is not a security whitepaper, which we admittedly still need to update and produce.

[jaseg@chaos.social]

@delta thanks for the clarification. speaking from my network security background, the whole timing leakage is what i’d call metadata and what your “zero metadata” thing is protecting (AFAIU timestamps and cryptographic identities) in a cryptographic protocol i’d consider straight up data, not metadata.

thinking about an average user of a secure comms tool, i’d expect they would be surprised to learn that something that is “zero metadata” still leaks timing and through correlation identities.

[delta@chaos.social]

@jaseg in the very first sentence we try to clarify the scope, i.e. "With the latest 2.48+ releases, a chat message reveals close to zero metadata to servers." The key phrase here is "to servers", and we then detail all the data that was made invisible to the server.
If you want to discuss this further, it's maybe better done in a support forum post.

[vintprox@techhub.social]

@delta I swear I saw an incorrect diagram some hour ago, where Alice and Bob only use two of their relays, and while writing my own post I was like: "HUUUUH?". And now it's corrected.

[vintprox@techhub.social]

RE: https://mastodon.ml/@vint/116326032648628266

@delta All set!

[pvagner@fedi.ml]

@Onlykievv @delta Audio / video calls on android are lovely! In call UI is awesome, ability to toggle both camera and microphone is working. There is even ability to switch audio outputs (speaker / ear piece).

An improvement to the future would be even more integrated incoming call notification experience. It would be nice to reuse android system support for this part too, so we can mute the ringer sound by pressing volume button and accept the incoming call by using the headset button.

I mean both convenience and accessibility when describing this.

Currently accepting the call can be done either by tapping the buttons in the notification area or tapping incoming call entry in the incoming message list. That includes multiple steps. Showing incoming call popup similar to how other apps are doing it would be more accessible.

Please don't take this as a complaining. I like these advancements very much. This is how I am envisioning it to work for the future.

[r10s@mastodon.social]

@vintprox @delta thanks a lot to you and others for following and looking so closely and attentive ️ you were not looking wrong, however, it is corrected meanwhile

[d1@autonomous.zone]

@delta congrats and thanks to everyone who worked on this