Re: [MLS] Recommendation for encrypted group operations

[Eric Rescorla <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Jan 30, 2024 at 2:40 PM Brendan McMillion <
[e-mail]> wrote:

> Groups can be extremely large: there are telegram channels of tens of
>> thousands of people. The credentials in cross-domain environments can
>> rapidly swell. At the same time spam can be an issue, and having
>> server visibility into group joining I think can be a very useful clue
>> here.
>
>
> MMS has a max group size of 10, iMessage of 32, Messenger of 250, Signal
> of 1000, WhatsApp of 1024. At these sizes, it does seriously warrant
> considering whether the efficiency arguments hold water. Spam concerns
> don't really resonate with me either, as Signal (the only major messenger
> to use Sealed Sender) seems to have no issue with it. Given that these are
> consumer apps, they also don't have the enterprise policy-enforcement
> constraints Richard described.
>
> I understand why the efficiency arguments apply to something like WebEx or
> Zoom, where several thousand people may pop in and out of a meeting in an
> hour. But like I said, that's a very specific type of app in the space
>

As I said earlier, the right place to take these arguments is MIMI. The
question for *this* WG is whether we should be giving people guidance that
we know they won't follow.

-Ekr


>
> Unfortunately I do not.  Honestly, I think the need was so obvious to
>> folks involved, who are working on real messaging systems, that there
>> wasn't much discussion.  Even the privacy-focused folks who had designed a
>> very privacy-preserving DS [draft-robert-mimi-delivery-service] have come
>> to agree that PublicMessage is the right answer as the default.
>
>
> I am curious how we got from "has already been discussed pretty
> extensively" to "so obvious... that there wasn't much discussion." :)
>
> On Tue, Jan 30, 2024 at 1:22 PM Richard Barnes <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Jan 30, 2024 at 11:15 AM Watson Ladd <[e-mail]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, Jan 30, 2024 at 1:11 PM Brendan McMillion
>>>
>>> > I personally have not followed the mimi wg very closely and I can not
>>> say why they made this decision.
>>>
>>> Even as someone subscribed I'm not sure I'm aware of this particular
>>> conversation. Anyone got handly links?
>>>
>>
>> I knew someone was going to ask :)
>>
>> Unfortunately I do not.  Honestly, I think the need was so obvious to
>> folks involved, who are working on real messaging systems, that there
>> wasn't much discussion.  Even the privacy-focused folks who had designed a
>> very privacy-preserving DS [draft-robert-mimi-delivery-service] have come
>> to agree that PublicMessage is the right answer as the default.
>>
>> --RLB
>>
>>