There will soon be Private Messaging on Steemit. But will those messages be encrypted?

In this post-NSA world, every creep wants to know what you're up to, so we need encryption, or we're standing naked before them. These lowlife scoundrels just want to market things to you, or pretend like they can stop "pre-crime".

Encryption isn't a joke, with so many creeps spying on us.

Private messages should be private, right? So I recommend OTR encryption!
That's "Off-The-Record". Check it out here: https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/

Of course, I'd be happy if the developers implement any sort of strong encryption into their private messaging platform. I'm not picky, as long as it's powerful.

But if encryption is implemented, will there be any troubles? One problem I can think of is that it'll be tough to report harassment.

This can be solved with an easy to use "Block User" feature, which would block the offending user just for the person receiving the unwanted messages. A fine solution that doesn't involve invading everyone's privacy just because of a few bad apples.

It's not a secret that the NSA spies upon all that you type over the internet. You don't even need to press the "Post" button, and I bet something is recording what you type and sending it off to be analyzed. Even you've noticed that posts get saved if you close the submit page, and then come back to it later. But strongly encrypted messages don't suffer this fate. Sure, the data is recorded, but it's just scrambled non-sense to human or computer, especially if it can only be decrypted once, with a very private key. No backdoors either. Private messages should be private, and not even admins should be able to see.

This sort of thing is absolutely necessary if we want the internet to remain attractive to intelligent people with interesting ideas. I don't want to think that I can't discuss ideas just because they'll be stolen or used badly, nor do I want to have to watch what I say around my friends, out of fear of some malicious authority.

So there you have it. Let's try to get this idea noticed by the admins, and make sure our private conversations stay private! This sort of thing is mandatory in a free, sane society, so let's not fail ourselves.

Encryption is awesomesauce!

~Kitten

tl;dr yes, with your memo key.

Will the encryption algorithm be strong though?

It will be end-to-end encrypted, so even Steemit cannot see your messages, and using the same cryptography securing the blockchain.

However, the implementation does not provide perfect forward secrecy nor plausible deniability. No perfect forward secrecy means that if your memo key is compromised in the future (e.g. a hacker steals your password) they can go through your entire history of past private conversations (the upside being that as long as you keep your password safe, your entire private message history remains safely backed up). No plausible deniability means that the person you are communicating with (or alternatively anyone who obtains your private memo key) can prove to anyone that you actually said what you said in the private messages (under the assumption that your private keys were not compromised by someone else at the time you sent the message).

well, if you think you steem private key can never be cracked (which is highly unlikely) then yes

Cracked? The problem would be a backdoor for either government or admins to peep.
Would that be a reason to worry?

yes. as long as there is no secure desktop wallet for steem. steemit is high risk in terms of security

of course we are the future we are big brother we are #1984

I'd be really shocked if private message were not encrypted.
I'm guessing the "mute" button will function as a block.

I can imagine some people might say "HTTPS is enough".
And that's why I made this post. I can't endure the thought that if this issue goes unnoticed, the private chat might be insecure. Even so, I think the developers are wise.

If they see this post, and all the support it gets, they will probably choose to implement encryption.
They might implement it anyways, and that'd be just dandy.

I wish Steemit could be moved into the Safe Network
when it´s moving into beta stage. THen we would have constant strong encryption! I think Maisafe is such a great project! I hope it will take over the internet one day as the new protocol,after the web.

I sincerely hope so!

I agree with you. Private messaging is a matter of time as most people would like to use it.

Its a good idea so lets hope it gets some traction with the devs of Steemit