{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "bskyPostRef": {
    "cid": "bafyreidaagkudmftx5sludvd7psh67rqvcfvicmgrqxmj2k3t7ihvafpcm",
    "uri": "at://did:plc:haakkg7y3xdghcdmprxeexso/app.bsky.feed.post/3mjvfgpyxsxb2"
  },
  "path": "/t/normie-messaging-app-versus-email/37231#post_10",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-20T01:49:41.000Z",
  "site": "https://discuss.privacyguides.net",
  "tags": [
    "@maqp",
    "Letter Sealing"
  ],
  "textContent": "@maqp I have no reason to believe Taiwan is a police state. But E2EE apps have been a goto scapegoat of criminal activity in Asian media.\n\nmaqp:\n\n> One great argument for Signal is that it’s so secure the Chinese government is having trouble getting around Signal’s E2EE, so they are blocking Signal. So Signal is providing protection against Chinese intelligence and organized crime, collecting data that could be used for industrial espionage, or, to extort Taiwanese people into going against their country’s interests.\n\nThat may be a great argument indeed! I’ll try citing that as another reason\n\nmaqp:\n\n> The friend must see reason in law-abiding citizens having the right if not even obligation to protect themselves and their countrymen against these threats.\n\nI don’t know my friend well enough yet but I get the impression they are not that kind of person and may believe they have nothing to hide.\n\nLike you, I believe privacy is not just a right nor individual right but an obligation and collective responsibility, and acting like having nothing to hide is harmful to oneself and others.\n\nmaqp:\n\n> But ultimately, if the friend is not comfortable using Signal, then the fate of the relationship is dictated what you two feel comfortable talking about over a monitored line. Let them know speaking freely gives more room for the relationship to deepen and that unfortunately it can’t happen otherwise.\n\nThat is sadly the current situation. I (and hopefully they) limit talking about sensitive topics over email. I tried the relationship deepening through privacy argument but they didn’t respond to it. Perhaps I shall reiterate the argument.\n\nQuantum:\n\n> Line offers E2EE as an option in their “letter sealing” setting.\n\nE2EE is not mandatory??? Thank you for the information!\n\nI found the Line support page about Letter Sealing. We would need to ensure Letter Sealing is enabled and avoid any features Letter Sealing doesn’t apply to, and I would need to ask them not to forward any of our messages to their other contacts.\n\nQuantum:\n\n> I’m not aware of any audits to determine how well it’s implemented but it is likely a better solution to normie email.\n\nI wouldn’t hold much faith in security audits of proprietary software. But the possibility that messages are E2EE is a likely improvement over all messages being knowingly unencrypted, setting aside possible false sense of security (fake E2EE) and increased data collection through the app.\n\nQuantum:\n\n> Line is the default messaging app for many people in Asia. Especially Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. I use it to talk with my family members who live in Asia. Sure Signal would be better, but Line is far from the worst option.\n\nThank you for your perspective. Are you able to explain some of the most important specifics about the Line app’s privacy/security features, information leakage and antifeatures?\n\nSome app (anti)feature related issues I imagine may be of concern are (listing this primarily for my own reference)\n\n  * The Android app’s mandatory permissions\n  * Leakage of account ownership information etc via contact discovery\n  * Disabling or bypassing E2EE by mistake\n  * Leakage of messages via notifications\n  * Delivery receipts and read receipts\n  * Leakage of URLs inside messages via URL previews\n  * Absence of disappearing messages\n\n\n\nWhyRhy:\n\n> beantaco:\n>\n>> In addition to clicking on a link and entering a password being too difficult/scary for many normies to handle\n>\n> I’d like to think this isn’t the case. If my 83 year old grandparent can put a password into a password field online, I think most should be okay.\n\nSome people are wary of clicking on links inside emails but I didn’t experience that when I tried email password protection.\n\nYour grandparent may have more patience than many people who have lived most of their lives with modern-day conveniences and instant gratification. I have come across people who can’t or won’t handle the inconvenience/complexity of Proton/Tuta email password protection.\n\nI have failed to enable email encryption one or two times myself, purely my fault. Not enabling it by default (globally or for specific contacts) is a key security weakness of the feature.\n\nI had someone tell me they couldn’t reach the prompt to enter the password and got an error instead. I suspect they used an outdated or unusual web browser.\n\nWhyRhy:\n\n> beantaco:\n>\n>> or leak contents of messages when replying\n>\n> I’m not sure how on this either.\n\nI had this happen once and I was completely dumbfounded. The reply they sent me was outside the encrypted channel and leaked their response and the entirety of my prior email!\n\nThere are the benefits of encryption (when it works) and disappearing messages (in Proton but not Tuta?) though. How my friend would handle password protected emails is yet to be seen. If I decide to try email password encryption I will post here (If I remember to do it!)",
  "title": "Normie messaging app versus email"
}