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What if your chatbot was end-to-end encrypted?

Moxie Marlinspike, the founder of the encrypted messaging app Signal, is back at it again. This time he wants to introduce end-to-end encryption into another space often lacking in privacy protections — artificial intelligence chatbots. This new open source project, Confer, aims to provide a more private alternative to established products like ChatGPT and Claude. Your conversations are encrypted using a key generated and stored on your own device, and those with the know-how can also check that the code running on the server is what is in the publicly available open source project. Read more.

What you can do

  • Looking for a private alternative? If you’re creeped out by companies using your conversations to train their AI, it might be worth a try. To get started, go to confer.to. Note that the free version of the application uses a somewhat constrained large language model. You may find that the chatbot declines to respond to some queries — for example, those that would otherwise be censored in China. The paid version of the application offers alternative models.
  • You can also chat offline, for free. There are a growing number of offline-friendly chat programs, like LM Studio and GPT4All, that will allow you to download open source models and run them privately on your own computer in a way that works for you.
  • Instead of passwords, Confer uses passkeys, a recently developed standard to help users log in more safely. Think of passkeys as an encryption key tied to your specific device. This is a reliable way to avoid phishing and when set up appropriately, can be an efficient way to log in. But in the wild, many providers are competing to store your passkeys — your password manager, your browser, and your operating system may all ask to store your key when you log into a service. You may even choose to store it on a physical USB device, like a Yubico security key.

    A note on passkeys: If you want to use many different devices, operating systems, and browsers, it’s possible you’ll run into trouble synching and retrieving these credentials. I’ve personally had the most luck getting consistent access by setting up my passkeys on my phone first, and then using my phone to recover and access my accounts on other devices. Check out our guide to setting up passkeys.

News from our team

We’re closely following the news that the FBI recently raided the home of a Washington Post journalist and, as part of a leak probe, seized a handful of her devices, including her phone and two laptops, one of which was a personal laptop. At minimum, it appears to be in conflict with the First Amendment and Privacy Prevention Act. Our executive director, Trevor Timm, breaks it all down.

This type of raid almost never happens. It reminds us of the possibilities, and what journalists should do to minimize risk down the road. We can’t prevent raids, but we can remind journalists to use disappearing messages and to encrypt your hard drives with FileVault for Mac or BitLocker for Windows to make it harder for someone to take data off of your device. When your device is powered off and when you install the newest security updates, using disk encryption will make it extremely difficult (but not impossible) for someone to read your data.

If you have disk encryption enabled, these protections only work if your device is powered off, or if you haven’t typed in the password yet. Typing in your password will decrypt your device, making it much easier to analyze. To maximize your protections, use disk encryption and, as needed, turn your device all the way off.

Our team is always ready to assist journalists with digital security concerns. Reach out here, and stay safe and secure out there.

Best,
Martin

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Martin Shelton
Deputy Director of Digital Security
Freedom of the Press Foundation