ChatMail? Questions from a Classic DeltaChat User

Hi,

I am a classical DeltaChat user for years, using an e-mail account.

Now I noticed ChatMail.

Please help me understand ChatMail deeper. I aim to communicate that to non-techical DeltaChat users in my community.

(1) What is a ChatMail account/identity actually? I understand that ChatMail technically relys on classical e-mail infrastructure. But users don’t seem to require a classical e-mail account.

(2) Can I keep/move a ChatMail account to another host? What if a (voluntarily driven) host shuts down.

(3) ChatMail server policies differ. Well, some allow 200M, some 700M. Maybe there is more to consider. It is a bit unclear how much that matters. What is your advice.

(4) ChatMail policies state “messages are deleted after 20 days”. Firstly I hope messages (successfully received) be kept on the device, correct? Secondly: If receivers are offline, e.g. in holidays for 20+1 days, will they miss some messages?

(5) Compatibility with non-DeltaChat e-mail users: When using a ChatMail profile, can I still exchange messages with non-DeltaChat users over their e-mail address?

(6) Compatibility between classical DeltaChat and ChatMail users: Can they communicate?

Thanks

About chatmailsecure .com this?! NO, EDITED TO NO SPREAD WRONG LINKS. chatmail we’re speaking about here is at https://chatmail.at

1 Like

(1) What is a ChatMail account/identity actually? I understand that ChatMail technically relys on classical e-mail infrastructure.

yes. chatmail relies on classic email infrastructure, currently postfix and dovecot, with a few tweaks that makes chatmail perfect for messaging and incredible cheap and easy to run:

  • chatmail allow instant onboarding
  • chatmail allows encrypted messages only, resulting in peer-to-peer end-to-end-encryption - also this is a barrier for misusing the relay - you need the public key of the recipient
  • chatmail allow instant delivery by supporting PUSH notification, esp. on iOS there is no alternative to that

But users don’t seem to require a classical e-mail account.

yes.

best is if average user do not even think about if they need an email account or not.

install the app - choose a name, done.

this is only a thing for long-term Delta Chat users, as it was different before :slight_smile:

(2) Can I keep/move a ChatMail account to another host?

great question!

in fact, we’re regarding that “right to exit” for chatmail operators as a very basic thing, where other decentralized services are failing or put a lot of burden to the operators, see xmpp or mastodon as examples.

in the past, it was already experimentally possible to change the provider. we’re currently aiming to get that out of experimental. the next releases will no longer identify the user primarily by and address, but by the cryptographic identifier - this will make it much easier to change transport chatmail relays - or even use multiple. stay tuned :slight_smile:

(user not using chatmail, still can use addresses as anchors, but that is not the way most users will experience Delta Chat, as said, most do not even know about that it is about email)

this also answers (3) - yes there are minor differences in relay, but as it will be easy to switch, they do not matter much, much less as eg. on mastodon. all chatmail relays and even classic providers are compatible.

I hope messages (successfully received) be kept on the device, correct?

yes

Secondly: If receivers are offline, e.g. in holidays for 20+1 days, will they miss some messages?

if you do not switch on your device in that three weeks, yes, you will miss messages when using chatmail. note, however, this is not a limitation of Delta Chat, but a consideration of many chatmail operators, that way, eg. they do not need to worry about GDPR, as this is within required timespans. the default makes chatmail relays easy to secure to operate without getting in conflict with laws, which is an important consideration as well, and results in the many chatmail servers we already have today.

still, you are free to use relays or classic providers with larger timespans.

(5) Compatibility with non-DeltaChat e-mail users: When using a ChatMail profile, can I still exchange messages with non-DeltaChat users over their e-mail address?

not easily, as chatmail enforces encryption, that is handled gracefully by chatmail/core, but not by lots of other “big tech” or classic tools. Proton Mail, otoh, should work.

(6) Compatibility between classical DeltaChat and ChatMail users: Can they communicate?

yes, as chatmail is mostly a subset of classic email, communication works. still, configuring classic email in Delta Chat may be a pain point, esp. for “big tech”, and lacks some of the advantages mentioned above

Is there a key lookup or sometning to be able to send to PGP enabled accts (Protonmail or Mailvelope)

no, Delta Chat does not support key lookup and also does not aim to add that currently.

Delta Chat is fully about peer-to-peer contact discovery.

that said, i am not sure if chatmail gets encrypted with protonmail, i did not tried that. but with using a classic email account in Delta Chat, we have reports it work.

if you have the public key from someone, you can use eg. .asc to vCard

still, all of that is advanced usage, we do not advertise that. to communicate to non-techical users - and this was the initial questions - just point ppl to chatmail and assume, that classic mail is smth else they should do with other apps. do not even talk about email, to avoid raising questions and half-knowledge :slight_smile:

1 Like

seems like this would be a great opportunity for a WXDC to do key look up for composing a new PGP message. Which would optionally add the functionality without changing UI. Since it would, presumably, only be initiated by a Delta account, since chatmail isn’t going to have a key server, it still resists the anti-spam methodology of requiring encryption.

@r10s:

Thanks a lot for the in-depth, enlightening answers. I’ll mark this answer as solution.

Let me add some comments, though.

best is if average user do not even think about if they need an email account or not. install the app - choose a name, done

I agree, that for average users ChatMail makes onboarding much simpler (as there is no fiddeling with email accounts). And this aspect should not at all be underestimated! This is what is expected for a chat application for many users nowadays. However, see the comments on the disadvantages of that approach below.

Compatibility with non-DeltaChat e-mail users? … not easy

IMHO, this is quite a thing. Doesn’t ChatMail put DelaChat users into a bubble like Matrix and also WhatsApp do? Hm! And BTW: No average user will even understand the consequences of the default choice (ChatMail as default over email accounts).

if you do not switch on your device in that three weeks, yes, you will miss messages when using chatmail

Thanks for explaining the reasons. Personally, I fully understand and support GDPR. However, people should know about that when chosing ChatMail.

Can I keep/move a ChatMail account to another host? … not yet

Okay, very important to know. Personally I find this quite critical. I cannot really recommend ChatMail then until this feature has been added as it is unclear whether this feature will be implemented at all and whether there will be a smooth transition.

Thanks!

What does the GDPR say about this? Do different rules apply depending on if you store data for more than 3 weeks or less than 3 weeks?

I noticed that at some point the default chatmail relay significantly reduced the timespan, although I don’t know exactly when this happened and I have wondered what was the reason for the change, since larger timespans have the advantage of reducing the possibility of missing any messages. Was the timespan reduced due to GDPR?

Webxdc apps don’t have internet access, so I don’t know how they’d do a key lookup.

Do you know if it would be enough for one person to have the other person’s key to establish two-way encrypted messaging (and the other key is sent automatically like SecureJoin) or would both people need to have the key of the other person?