E2EE Compromise When Inviting External Bots or Using Untrusted Infrastructure

(#4127) Feature Open: Under consideration

Current problem

When bots are invited to E2EE voice calls, they receive the same symmetric encryption keys as human group members. Users cannot guarantee external or third-party bots won't be compromised or have their encryption keys extracted, allowing offline decryption of audio. Server-side muting provides no cryptographic guarantee since the bot still possesses decryption keys. Users are forced to choose between inviting convenience-hosted bots and maintaining E2EE peace of mind.

Proposed change

Allow users to selectively isolate specific bots from group encryption when inviting them. Isolated bots would still send audio to the group but would NOT receive symmetric group encryption keys, cannot decrypt human audio.

Platform

Web, API, Self-hosting

Additional information

The ideal solution would allow bots to be invited without giving them access to the encryption keys used by humans in the call. One possible approach: support multiple parallel DAVE groups within a single voice channel, where humans form their own encrypted group that the bot has no cryptographic access to, while the bot still receives its own encrypted stream that humans can listen to. Whether this is the best implementation or if there's a better approach, the core issue is that inviting an external bot currently cannot be done securely under the assumption that the bot's infrastructure might be compromised.

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