Discussion
Like most social networks, Mastodon is not end-to-end encrypted. If you're sending sensitive info it's better to use a separate end-to-end encrypted messaging app.
Mastodon itself warns you about this if you are sending a DM through the web interface (see the screenshot).
More info about the risks and how to mitigate them in the guide at:
➡️ https://fedi.tips/is-mastodon-end-to-end-encrypted
TL:DR - Main risk is your server admin reading your DMs, but they would need techy skills to do this.
@FediTips as a server admin I think it's worth mentioning that the techy skills required to read users' DMs are pretty trivial. I could do it very easily if I wanted.
Of course I don't, and won't, but I assume there are circumstances where I could be compelled to hand them over to law enforcement or something and I don't think I or the users would want to be in that position!
@FediTips yes, this is important to know! It's also worth mentioning that the ActivityPub folks are working to add end-to-end encryption to the protocols, so hopefully we'll get that at some point.
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@FediTips
If you need an E2EE messaging but with a UI that even your toddler can work with, you can try #DeltaChat https://delta.chat
Other than that, you can also try #Matrix, and #XMPP. They are all #decentralized and #opensource
Delta Chat: Delta Chat, decentralized secure messenger