Exploring how AT Protocol and SMTP can work together to make secure messaging possible by combining 50-year-old email infrastructure with modern cryptographic identity. Building on Chris Boscolo's AT-SMS proposal, this post introduces ideas for adding SMTP services directly to DID documents and leveraging PDS-level cryptographic operations through XRPC methods. The result: verifiable, encrypted communication where messages work like signed JWTs over email, handles prove identity without centralized authorities, and users maintain complete control over their messaging infrastructure. A technical deep-dive into how "boring" technology like SMTP and DNS, combined with AT Protocol's identity primitives, could finally deliver truly portable, private, and permanent messaging.

Open End-to-End Encrypted Messaging on AT Protocol

In the fall of 2024 it was reported that a Chinese hacker group called Salt Typhoon “gained access to U.S. telecommunications networks in…