this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
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Privacy
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In my opinion, we really need decentralized, self-hosted infrastructure.
I kind of hope we get a Fediverse alternative for WhatsApp.
I imagine running some kind of relay node on a raspberry pi, for perhaps 20-100 acquaintances. All traffic would be anonymized and encrypted as much as possible. Push notifications replaced by polling. Anonymous broadcast groups that allow anonymous sending and receiving of messages without revealing either who is sending or who is receiving.
Everything wiped every few minutes on the relay node.
Others would also run relays that are then federated together.
ActivityPub isn't good for everything, especially for privacy. Luckily SimpleX exists.
Thanks, never heard of SimpleX, but I will check it out.
But to make an analogy. Bitcoin wasn't good for privacy at first. But they added features and new coins like Monero were developed with strong privacy.
So I expect there will eventually be a private ActivityPub, either "on top of" or "next to" the current one.
i mean sure, you can modify the standard enough until it's somewhat secure, but it doesn't make any sense to do so.
You actively don't want secure communication channels to be interoperable with insecure ones, they should be kept as separate as possible so there's minimal risk of leaking the important data.
+1 for simplex
https://simplex.chat/
How would simplex even help here? Is the a Lemmy alternative built upon simplex? Or a friendica one?
Anti Commercial-AI license
not sure how this is confusing, simplex is a chat app with privacy as the #1 priority; OP wanted a private alternative to whatsapp, simplex is that alternative.
I missed the thing about the chat app 😅 My bad.
Anti Commercial-AI license
SimpleX can be self hosted
As in, activitypub is not suited for chatting apps. A decentralized protocol specifically designed for messaging (matrix,xmpp,simplex) would fit better here.
I missed the thing about the chat app 😅 My bad.
Anti Commercial-AI license
It doesn’t cover everything you’re referring to, but there are projects like
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Scuttlebutt
So there is certainly a way forward for what you’re describing
XMPP would work for this
No?