[Feature Request]: Discussion on path encryption

[Minfrog314]

Platform

Cross-Platform

Description

Hello, I'm pretty new here so let me know if this is the wrong place to discuss this.

Obviously this wouldn't be a high priority, as I think we should focus on increasing stability rather than adding features that could decrease it, but is there a possibility of encrypting the path in the future? As it is now, geolocating users is relatively easy and I think that could easily be abused especially as more people get involved.

It would probably involve something like how TOR does it, encrypting the next hop with each repeater's public key. I don't know that much about any of this, so may not be feasible at all seeing as each hop is only 1 byte, I suppose it would be trivial to brute force. Also it would complicate some cool ideas I've seen floating around the issue tracker. Maybe it would be off by default, or maybe it would need to be enabled on each repeater. Idk.

Regardless, I do think it is a discussion that should be had, even if it leads to no changes.

(Also to head off any responses that privacy and security don't matter: Meshcore is marketed as a secure messaging system, and it does matter to many of us. You might not care that you can be located or you might not care about encryption at all, just like I might not care about using meshcore for sensors or as an asset tracker.)

[github-actions[bot]]

@Minfrog314, Welcome to Meshtastic! 👋

Thanks for opening your first issue. If it's helpful, an easy way
to get logs is the "Open Serial Monitor" button on the Web Flasher.

If you have ideas for features, note that we often debate big ideas
in the discussions tab
first. This tracker tends to be for ideas that have community
consensus and a clear implementation.

We're very active on discord,
especially the #firmware and #alphanauts-testing channels. If you'll
be around for a while, we'd love to see you there!

Welcome to the community! ❤️