Question about using Delta Chat with Iran email serivces

[nasim.nazanin88]

Hi,
I want to know if is it safe for people in Iran using Delta Chat with an Iranian email service? Could the Iranian email service provider decode the messages?

[Raiden]

Hello ,
I’m not a developer and can’t say much about security.
But last year there was a similar question.
Maybe the posts there will help you.

Thread:

Military coup in Burma -- could Deltachat help?

"Burmese here would like to chime in. I couldn’t get anybody to install Signal this morning because military raided offices of every offices of major ISP and disabled calling, sms, cellular internet and since signal relied on sms to activate, i couldn’t activate it. Now that they successfully done the coup, they’ve reopened calling, sms and cellular internet on military owned ISP (who literally openly spies on users) and state-owned ISP, which is now in control by military and even soldiers can …

Especially this post:

Military coup in Burma -- could Deltachat help?

Trying to answer the original question - should “they might be reading your messages and arrest us all if you don’t switch messengers” not be enough? What I can help more with maybe is a comparison of messengers for your use case. Much of it might be shaped by my personal opinion, of course(!). You may also want to ask other people. I think that the most important thing is to switch away from SMS. If you have more questions, just ask. My advice: use DeltaChat with an email provider (that’s wh…

Additional Information:

Security goals of Delta Chat

Hey @Tao thanks for asking these questions! It would be cool to have a Delta Chat security whitepaper … hum … Here are some drafts for parts of chapters from my side, please bear with me if it’s not a full discussion … Security perspectives in messaging “security” is a large and emotionally charged topic with many perspectives and approaches. Already with at-risk users we remind ourselves that security is about social user outcomes – do people land in jail, can authorities identify a whole s…

[hpk]

Hello @nasim.nazanin88 – if you and friends use national iranian e-mail servers with Delta Chat, then your messages will become end-to-end encrypted between you. If you also use it to e-mail non-delta chat users then those communications will not be encrypted, usually.

For DC users to protect messages against potentially hostile e-mail servers it’s best to use QR codes for setting up contact with each other, and then create so called “verified groups”. For more technical background, you can read here 2. Securing communications against network adversaries — Counter Mitm 0.10.0 documentation

[nasim.nazanin88]

thanks hpk.
The issue with QR code is that we want to contact activists inside Iran from outside the country.
But the idea of temporary email is good. How can we have access to it in Delta chat?
Sorry the other issue is we outside Iran won’t use national email. But they do.

[xyz]

Maybe sending the QR code image (inside an encrypted file) using file sharing services (e.g. Google Drive or Firefox Send Instances) lets Iranians (like me ) to scan the QR code remotely!

It’s possible? or even safe?

[Andreas]

Send instances:

Tim Visée / send-instances · GitLab

[nasim.nazanin88]