
Delta Chat - AlphaWeaver
https://delta.chat/
======
magnetic
I like this idea.

I wonder how latency impacts the "live chatting" experience.

Email protocols have specific impediments on egress and ingress: on one end to
ensure that a sender isn't sending out spam (challenges, proof of work, etc),
and on the other end to ensure the recipient isn't getting spam/malware/etc.

Add to that SPF, DKIM, DMARC processing along the way...

It's not uncommon to have conversations with a 3rd party along the lines of...

\- Did you get my email? I just sent it a minute ago.

\- No not yet. It'll come through.

...with this taking sometimes up to a minute.

We accept a certain latency with email communications, but I'm unsure that
will offer a good user experience for interactive chat.

~~~
jasonhansel
One solution is to upgrade the IMAP connection to a direct TCP one, using ICE
(from WebRTC). This was part of a project I helped work on:
[https://github.com/tkoft/GoingPostal](https://github.com/tkoft/GoingPostal)

~~~
stevenicr
> "using ICE (from WebRTC)"

Would this leak the ip addy of the sender to the receiver and people along the
wires?

Each time I looked into webrtc and websockets I think, I noticed the need for
a stun/turn server in order to mask sender ip addys, but don't know enough
about all that atm.

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bravoetch
I love the concept of using existing protocols, but the implementation here
creates a mismatch in expectation between the communicating users. I may be
'chatting' with someone that doesn't use Delta, and they just see short emails
that don't conform to social norms for email content. Then they decide to cc a
bunch of people into the conversation. Now what? The part of chat that I would
like to see solved is end-to-end encryption for all, and interoperability
between the existing protocols. This is just a shitty email client.

~~~
stevenicr
I have been hoping to see some new email clients that would auto load a feed
of contacts and make the views appear similar to fbok / buddypress - have it
auto load next emails and any images (if from contacts) - so an endless scroll
could be - and option to reply to each post / feed item / email..

I think making the ux similar to what people are familiar with / similar to
the most popular options (maybe like twitter and wechat too) -

we'd get a chance of getting people away from the walled gardens -

I'd love for new apps to not only provide that kind of ux, but also give
options to send comments (and also recieve in the client and display) via
other platforms like signal, matrix, activity pub, all the bridges..

It would need icons next to messages to show which portal they are coming from
/ going to, is it encrypted, etc.

I for one would very much like to see new viewing options for some shitty
email clients.

I appreciate the home page of this delta chat is showing screen views for
desktop, android, iPhone - wish all products did this.

------
jchw
This is cool, but probably not super practical. Gmail for example limits the
number of messages you can send per day pretty strictly, so using it for
messages would probably be unwise. Busy chats could probably eat the quota.

~~~
smush
I see where you are coming from, but I disagree re: the practicality being
limited by message sending limits.

Sister comment says Gmail allows 500 messages to be sent per day. 500
messages/day sent in napkin math = ~20 messages/hour. Per
[https://www.textrequest.com/blog/how-many-texts-people-
send-...](https://www.textrequest.com/blog/how-many-texts-people-send-per-
day/) , American adults sent 128 or less texts per day in 2018. You can send
triple that number & still not hit the Gmail limit.

For other email providers, the limit is even higher. I checked for Fastmail's
equivalent daily message limits, and it enables 4,000 or more per day.

For me personally, if I'm going to be doing over ~ 50 sent messages in one
day, I'm going to ditch the mobile device and move to a desktop as I prefer a
full-size Model M keyboard to touchscreens wherever possible. Most of my awake
time is at work or home, where desktops abound.

I don't want to speak for you or others' preferences on this, as admittedly I
don't text nearly as much as most of my peers, but I suspect others also at
some point reach for a desktop UI, whether native (Signal), electron (Slack),
or web-based (FB Messenger / WhatsApp / pick yer poison) for in-depth, non-
mobile conversations.

~~~
jchw
I think the limit of 500 is only via the Gmail interface, iirc the limit for
SMTP clients is 200.

~~~
smush
Based on some quick ducking (as opposed to googling), you are correct, 100-200
does appear to be the daily SMTP relay limit. I wonder if Google would raise
that to, say, 500-1000 if Delta.chat started having a sizeable user market
share?

~~~
jchw
My first instinct is it would likely be a hard fight. The limit is obviously a
matter of preventing abuse, and changing it might change the dynamics for
malicious parties or otherwise make mitigating abuse harder. This is probably
an issue for most free email providers.

This is still a conceptually cool idea for many reasons, but for this and
other practical reasons it may end up being preferable to use it with another
email provider. Especially since I personally think JMAP is intriguing and
this might be useful for Delta Chat.

I do worry that without good support for Google accounts and maybe even some
other major free email providers (important: I really don't know,) Delta chat
may face practical issues with gaining critical mass.

(Just for full disclosure and good practice, I am an employee at Google, but I
do not work on Gmail and I'm speaking strictly as a user.)

~~~
smush
I tend to agree with your point as shown. Every inch given to 'worthy causes'
like Delta.chat can come with the cost of unscrupulous types like
scammers/spammers.

I don't really expect Gmail to bend over backwards to accommodate this. Like
you though, I worry that this could inhibit Delta.chat getting enough critical
mass.

On the other hand, if delta.chat starts to collect some critical mass, Gmail
would probably want to avoid the generation of a pro-tip like "don't use
Gmail, they're too restrictive, use Fastmail/iCloud/Outlook instead" because
that could cost market share...or they can increase that limit a bit and keep
the status quo going well.

Full disclosure -> I am not a Google employee, but thank you for providing the
caveat for your comment! Those tend to help comments be read in a more
meaningful light, speaking for myself at least :D

------
akerl_
Reading their docs, it seems like this uses Trust-on-first-use key exchange,
so if there's an attacker passively observing the network at that point, they
can MITM all future communications.

Also, the Autocrypt Level 1 spec, which this seems to implement, appears to be
based on PGP, with the following caveat: "Sometimes Autocrypt recommends to
send cleartext mail even though encryption appears technically possible."

~~~
titanomachy
I don't think that's how TOFU works. Doesn't attacking it require an active
attacker to substitute his own public key at the start?

~~~
e12e
Yes, if the attacker is strictly passive, tofu with public key should be fine.
That the attacker is strictly passive is a pretty strong assumption though!

------
na85
Hang on, if the person you're chatting with doesn't need to install deltachat,
isn't this just... Email?

~~~
fxj
In principle instant messaging is just email with a dumbed down interface.

~~~
fredley
In principle, email is just exchanging TCP packets with a dumbed down
interface.

~~~
fxj
But email relies on free and open source standards while instant messaging is
a walled garden that relies on closed protocols by some shady corporations
that sell your data.

~~~
gregknicholson
XMPP and Matrix (and arguably ActivityPub) are open specifications for IM,
each with multiple interoperable implementations. (I'm counting mxhsd as a 2nd
implementation of a Matrix server; I accept that it isn't mature yet.)

------
trynewideas
I can make quick replies to an email from a notification, but I can't write a
long email in a chat client. And my email client is more battery efficient
than Delta Chat. (It's been on F-Droid a while, I've tried to use it and want
to like the concept, but it ultimately shows out as pointless.)

There's no reason to run two email clients on my phone to receive the same
messages.

------
redthrow
So the content of email gets encrypted automatically if the other party uses
Delta Chat but it's in plaintext otherwise?

I can't tell from their website if 2 people who use a Gmail account + Delta
Chat reveal the content of their email to Google.

------
jwalton
Similar idea here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19216077](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19216077)

------
mtgx
They mention encryption on their site, but if it uses email are all text
messages secure from the email provider reading them or not?

~~~
elvecinodeabajo
E2E encryption may make the messages unreadable out of the Delta client app.
Specs here: [https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-
android/blob/master/s...](https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-
android/blob/master/standards.md#standards-used-in-delta-chat)

------
Midnightas
Damn, I had this idea once, shame I didn't do anything with it. This looks
like something I'll actually use though!

------
lifeformed
Does this create a new email in everyone's inboxes for every message? Or is it
doing something else under the hood.

~~~
zikzak
You'd think this would be covered in the FAQ. Maybe their client deletes the
email once it is received by the app but then how do you use multiple clients
at once (and so forth).

------
dickeytk
> Delta Chat has no own servers

I'm not sure what that's trying to say but the grammar is definitely wrong.

~~~
chki
I think it's fascinating that you don't understand what is meant by that
sentence. I'm a native german speaker and would probably not make that mistake
but I can't imagine somebody not understanding the combination of the words
"own" and "servers".

------
botto
So is this using COI protocol?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19216077](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19216077)

~~~
elvecinodeabajo
As specs says it uses IMAP as Transport it's a CoI based messenger.

[https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-
android/blob/master/s...](https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-
android/blob/master/standards.md#standards-used-in-delta-chat)

~~~
NonEUCitizen
Could be the other way around -- CoI is based on Delta Chat?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19216346](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19216346)

~~~
elvecinodeabajo
I don't think so. Delta Chat seems a system running 'Chat over ICMP', so CoI
goes on protocol layer, while Delta Chat goes on application layer.

~~~
NonEUCitizen
Where do you see that Delta Chat uses ICMP ?

~~~
elvecinodeabajo
LOL. My bad. Its Chat over IMAP.

~~~
NonEUCitizen
It sounds like CoI took (tempted to say hijacked) a subset of Delta Chat
(protocol subset), something that was already shipping and working, and merely
rebranded it.

~~~
elvecinodeabajo
Delta Chat is just a CoI client, as CoI webpage says.

"Thanks to Delta Chat Core, as a client developer you do not even need to deal
with IMAP directly." [https://www.coi-dev.org/](https://www.coi-dev.org/)

------
antidaily
Damn. I was hoping to speak with someone about my last SkyMiles statement.

------
fxj
I think this is the future of instant messaging. If we all would change
instantly to delta.chat, whatsapp et al would go bankrupt and we would not
lose a bit of security. At the moment everybody is fine with handing out their
most private information to some huge corporations which already told us that
we are dumb fucks. But maybe mankind deserves this.

------
munk-a
I know that naming things is hard but... the chances this isn't mistaken for
being somehow related to delta airlines is nearly 0. The fact that this chat
has nothing to do with delta (i.e. difference calculation) but seems to just
be using delta to say "We're different" seems like an atrocious business
decision.

