E2EE thoughts, ideas, questions

[Rik]

Dear /e/-community,
if Murena and /e/OS were to advance its encryption for its cloud services further to be end-to-end (E2EE), what do you think would be important to keep in mind, in terms of features, potential challenges etc? And how could such a solution maintain a smooth UX for mainstream users, while at the same time providing the maximum security of E2EE?
Any ideas and thoughts welcome!

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[FraudulentBaptism]

Necromancing this old thread because I couldn’t find any other or better threads here.

I see the /e/os documentation lists various reasons why Murena isn’t designed to support End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) and won’t implement NextCloud’s buggy E2EE plug-in (under the can the murena workspace admin access my data section), but the former claims:

True end-to-end encryption for Murena Workspace files, full database encryption, and encryption for mails is in our plans as long-term features.

I noticed Murena Vault wasn’t mentioned in the /e/os documentation, which allegedly DOES support E2EE:

Murena Vault is a user-friendly and end-to-end encrypted online directory, powered by the CryptPad technology, that allows users to store sensitive files with end-to-end encryption—including for real-time editing and collaboration. Documents stored in the Murena Vault can only be decrypted by their owners.

I’m having a bit of a hard time understanding what is and isn’t E2EE encrypted with Murena and /e/os. I really like the idea of a hardware/software/cloud competitor to Apple and Google, but I wasn’t a fan of all of the access various admins would have to my information. Proton seems to have figured this out across their services; would love to see it here too.

[Rik]

hi @FraudulentBaptism ! thanks for bringing this important topic up. We are actually big fans of E2EE, but it is enormously challenging to implement in a good way that also remains user-friendly. It is always on our mind however for the future :).
And yes Murena Vault is fully E2EE!

[edothe]

Thanks for the update. I’m wondering if you mean end-to-end encrypting all users’ files by default, or the more limited use-case, of allowing users to select the folders they want to be end-to-end encrypted, or both?

[Rik]

In Murena Vault all folders are E2EE by default. So depending on whether you need E2EE for certain files and folders or not, you can use Murena Vault or Murena Workspace for storing your files and folders.