I note that there have been lots of conversations in this forum over at least the last 4 years showing a strong desire for encrypted communications in Discourse. And they usually end up noting that it is a really hard problem, especially when encrypted group chats are considered, and that integrating with Keybase is a recommended alternative for a variety of reasons.
So I would advise those who really do want convenient, robust, encrypted communications to support this integration work, which is far easier than the work already in process, and does provide group chats and much more, all reliably tied to users based on their Discourse persona.
Here are a few references, starting with a wise quote from co-founder Sam Saffronsamco-founder about flaws with any web-based solution like Discourse:
Note that Keybase solves this by having native clients for many platforms.
Next up, on the current Discourse Encrypt project
Sam, would there be any way to extend this functionality to a category/threads (and allow by groups?)
Absolutely not, this is not in scope and not planned even 3 iterations out.
Next, the RFC for Discourse Encrypt which notes that they also don’t plan to properly address the multiple device or loss-of-key issues that Keybase is designed to get right:
the UI clearly explains that if she forgets this secret she will NEVER have access to her encrypted messages anymore
So again, please note that Keybase is now easy to integrate with, and that it solves problems that other solutions aren’t even planning to address.