Deprecating encrypted PMs on this forum

Announcements
1

Regrettably, Discourse is no longer maintaining the plugin that allows for end-to-end encrypted messages on the forum.

I suspect these were seldom used, but they were occasionally used by people to communicate sensitive information to members of our team. We will publish guidance on securely contacting us via alternative methods later this week.

You now have the option to permanently decrypt your DMs with a new button in each message, as well as an option to bulk decrypt all of your messages in your profile.

If you decrypt your DMs, they will be stored in plaintext in our database like any other forum information (although I will note our database and all of our systems use full-disk encryption on the hardware level).

If you do not decrypt your DMs by the end of February, they will be permanently lost when we disable and remove the plugin.

5 Likes
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This is the first time I’ve heard that discourse even had e2ee chat

7 Likes
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I was wondering where the encryption came from… glad I didn’t have time to get used to it, I suppose.

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Yeah, I didn’t know we even had encrypted chat. It wasn’t explicitly clear when I joined the platform, as far as I remember.

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What about SimpleX? Users can create dedicated chat profiles named like: Privacy Guides: @yes

Also forum UI seems to be changed, it looks cleaner.

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I suppose one could update their PG profile with their Matrix identity, and securely chat individually, with e2ee enabled (given PG already has an established space on Matrix).

Space: #privacyguides:matrix.org