> Email is centralized because every time I send an email, I'm doing a DNS lookup.
And every time the Signal app connects to its centralized servers, you're doing a DNS lookup too.
> By contrast, if I use a true P2P solution, I never need to do a DNS lookup. My chats in Signal can't be disrupted by a change in MX records.
But Signal isn't a true P2P solution. As your linked description of the Signal Protocol states:
"It does not provide anonymity preservation and requires servers for the relaying of messages and storing of public key material."
> It's like telling people that the WWW is decentralized as long as you use .onion addresses. That's not true because as soon as you get off of public domains, you're not on the WWW anymore.
If you're using HTTP and HTML and hyperlinks and URIs, then you are using the WWW. I suppose you could say that .onion addresses are the Dark Web, but saying they are not part of the web is pointless gatekeeping, like saying that HTTPS sites aren't part of the web because some web clients don't support TLS.
> I don't think you understand this topic.
That makes two of us then.
> There are protocols with encryption schemes built into them. Email is not one of those.
Again, this is an unhelpful observation. HTTP is a protocol that doesn't have encryption schemes built into it, but we didn't decide to throw it away in order to make the web secure. Similarly we don't need to throw away all existing email protocols and clients in order to have secure messaging.
> That is in contrast to Signal Protocol[1], where all clients' E2EE are compatible with each other as long as they're using the same protocol.
No, email is exactly the same as the Signal Protocol in that regard, since all email clients' E2EE are compatible with each other as long as they're using the same (encryption) protocol. The fact that an SMTP server doesn't reject an email that isn't PGP encrypted is a feature, not a bug.
And every time the Signal app connects to its centralized servers, you're doing a DNS lookup too.
> By contrast, if I use a true P2P solution, I never need to do a DNS lookup. My chats in Signal can't be disrupted by a change in MX records.
But Signal isn't a true P2P solution. As your linked description of the Signal Protocol states:
"It does not provide anonymity preservation and requires servers for the relaying of messages and storing of public key material."
> It's like telling people that the WWW is decentralized as long as you use .onion addresses. That's not true because as soon as you get off of public domains, you're not on the WWW anymore.
If you're using HTTP and HTML and hyperlinks and URIs, then you are using the WWW. I suppose you could say that .onion addresses are the Dark Web, but saying they are not part of the web is pointless gatekeeping, like saying that HTTPS sites aren't part of the web because some web clients don't support TLS.
> I don't think you understand this topic.
That makes two of us then.
> There are protocols with encryption schemes built into them. Email is not one of those.
Again, this is an unhelpful observation. HTTP is a protocol that doesn't have encryption schemes built into it, but we didn't decide to throw it away in order to make the web secure. Similarly we don't need to throw away all existing email protocols and clients in order to have secure messaging.
> That is in contrast to Signal Protocol[1], where all clients' E2EE are compatible with each other as long as they're using the same protocol.
No, email is exactly the same as the Signal Protocol in that regard, since all email clients' E2EE are compatible with each other as long as they're using the same (encryption) protocol. The fact that an SMTP server doesn't reject an email that isn't PGP encrypted is a feature, not a bug.