Imagine a system where every message is encrypted with at least two keys, one for the sender and one for the receiver. Any one party can destroy its key part and leave the message inaccessible to the other. The only operation that does not require an explicit simultaneous consent is a scoped request for a signature, that can be either blocked at the IP/MAC level if necessary, or automatically accepted for trusted contacts, although the option to revoke it by deleting all related keys will always remain.
Fundamentally, this means that there cannot be such a thing as a public stream, because only the senders and receivers have access to the keys required to decode the message. The only way to send messages to people you are yet to be in contact with, would be to send them to specific relay accounts that work as a forum group or community. These group accounts must sign all the messages together with the sender and, eventually, the receiver; when a new group member joins, the relay group account asks the sender and receiver to sign the message that the original sender delivered to the relay. Administrators can moderate group messages by deleting their own key part, leaving such messages inaccessible to everyone else. In order to view a group message, you as an user must have been granted access to the group's public key part; the only technical complication comes from the fact that removing members requires a key rotation, potentially on all current and former messages in the group, which might end up being wasteful in terms of bandwidth and storage...
...And, now that I think about it, the closest thing to that protocol would be Matrix! It already has support for encryption and management of groups in the form of rooms, as well as one-on-one messages (which are themselves rooms with only two members). Rooms can also have administrators with increasing levels of permissions. I wonder if there will be a Movim-like implementation that uses Matrix beneath the hood to make a consent-first federated social network.
#Matrix #ActivityPub #Consent
RE: hub.azkware.net/objects/6e2ecb…
