Matrix/Online Communication

It seems that most people here still use IRC, which is great, but not really secure. Some people even use Discord, especially on other imageboards. Most Lainons seem tech-savvy enough to avoid it though. But is there any reason you should not switch to Matrix? >https://matrix.org Some of its features >open source >end to end encryption >works in terminal, web-browser, smartphones >voip >decentralized >send files Any reasons we should use something else over Matrix?

Reading their about section is odd. They are very vague about who their board of directors members are. This is a messaging app, so by it's very nature it is insecure to some degree, as is the case with all of these messaging apps. If truly covert communication is key, these sorts of things shouldn't be relied upon. I don't go on IRC/Discord/Slack/etc with the expectation that nothing I say can be attributed to me. Consider the trilemma of Zooko's Triangle. Though a relatively new concept it holds true.

>end to end encryption dependend on client, currently there is only one, and that is the electron one

>muh security if you aren't sharing child pornography, there really is nothing to worry about. the government or the NSA doesn't really give a fuarrrk about a tinhat tipper that watches anime and stay in his room the whole day.

>It seems that most people here still use IRC, which is great, but not really secure. Did you just assume my protocol usage? IRC supports TLS which is good enough client-server security protocol, and since IRC chats are public for all server users there is no need to encrypt messages themselves. If you are concerned about data retention, don't host on shartnode, make your own server for your buddies, and then there is such masochism as OTR over IRC which is really an overkill when XMPP exists. Second, Matrix does not address a problem of multi-user chats, the problem is that they are soykaf, volatile unstructured soykaf. No serious discussions should be held in MUCs. Slack, Rocket chat and mattermost have support for threaded discussions and have collaboration groupware features, a reincarnation of BBS/Usenet which is good because default web forums are cancer. >open source Useless buzzword. Go to https://riot.im/privacy and check out what data they collect from you. We have no other GUI clients for now. >end to end encryption Does it have OTR? I don't trust this new "ratcheting elliptic curve" protocol developed by jew with dreadlocks >works in terminal, web-browser, smartphones So, more normal people in muh sikrit klub? Jokes aside, it's just a matter of client software. IRC works in browser too, doesn't mean it's something good. >voip SIP and Jingle >decentralized Email used to be too, but today everyone uses Gmail >send files XMPP has it Convince me why this new flavour of the month Discord-Telegram substitute is better than XMPP or SIP in 3 sentences or less. Any reasons we should use something else over XMPP with OTR? >>5791 Government doesn't, but boy those advertisers do.

I love matrix, most of the channels i hang out in are bridged too it. Out of discord, slack and telegram, riot is my favorite and i havent had trouble with it unlike the others. If you really need security then tox is probably more the way to go. I wish there was a lainchan matrix group.

>>5791 Dude... it's 1984. Security is like hygiene. You don't have to do it, but once soykaf goes south you are sure as hell gonna wish you did so in the past.

>>5794 Most people are tech illiterate, convince them to do and learn all of this. I thinks it's a great opportunity to convince people to go from discord or Whatsapp to something more secure. Privacy is highly valued, even for some normal people, if you want to call them that. Matrix is easy to set up. Everyone can use it. Seems like a good alternative to me.

>>5794 >Slack, Rocket chat and mattermost have support for threaded discussions and have collaboration groupware features, a reincarnation of BBS/Usenet which is good because default web forums are cancer. I fail to see how Slack & such are more like classic BBSes and Usenet than Mailing Lists and forums like phpBB. Do you mean refer to crap like reddit as being a forum? Also as an aside I'd say OMEMO is becoming quite more convenient than OTR. >>5791 What >>5808 said, plus, even if the government itself doesn't go wrong (fat chance), do they have any incentive not to sell/share that information with a variety of corporations and individuals which may have much less benign effects? sage for somewhat off-topic

>>5813 I think education for the masses is the best tool. That and showing them what is available already. There are great pieces of software out there for secure and anonymous communication. The trick, at least in my case, was showing them privacy is not a bad thing.

>>5813 >>5814 I still see no arguments against XMPP. It has all the features of Matrix, is mature enough and everyone uses it. My tech illiterate friends had no problem with it when I hosted a CS server for them and we had to communicate. It seems like today XMPP is even more convenient with dumbphone applications like Conversations. You register on the server, add contacts, tick the encryption flag, start chatting. Much like email, what's so difficult about it, It seems that federated matrix has the same structure plus a bunch of IRC bridges XMPP already had. XMPP has a ton of clients with different user needs, from swiss knife Pidgin to hardened CoyIM and so on. Do people today hate freedom of choice? Matrix has only one norman-friendly client and it is a privacy/security nightmare that phones home on every action and is built on browser engine. Whole Matrix website is filled with buzzwords like "WebVR", "chat for the new web" an so on, when you scroll down all that nonsense and read what's the difference they have to offer from existing IM protocols, it says nothing. And then there is Wire protocol. "Open Source", has federated server option and is basically the same thing. More or less. Why don't you schill Wire then?

>What are redactions? >Since events are extensible it is possible for malicious users and/or servers to add keys that are, for example offensive or illegal. Since some events cannot be simply deleted (e.g. membership events) we instead ‘redact’ events, essentially stripping the event of all keys that are not required by the protocol. Redacting an event cannot be undone, allowing server owners to also delete the offending content from the databases. Yeah, it's soykaf.

>>5791 >neurosuggesting i'm not joke aside,or not? cheap b8 btw the main problem I can see with matrix is that most people use it through riot, and riot's terms of use and privacy policy are pretty restrictive and cancerous. btw not gonna lie, if something can't be used to share pizza without getting caught shat ain't secure, period

>>5977 >if something can't be used to share pizza without getting caught shat ain't secure, period Tru dat CP is the gold standard imho Although theoretically the platinum standard would be national secrets or money laundering or something And then an additional tier could be security against a particularly vicious, creative hacker not bound by the legal system

>>5977 Why would you share pizza online? Just get it from one of your local pizza centers and have it delivered to your door.

>>5999 Not sure if you're joking or just out of the loop, but he's using pizza to be short for cheese pizza -> cp -> child porn

>>5972 >someone posts soykaf on your Laotian Gardening Chatroom >get DMCA telling you to delete the a post >whoops sorry guys we can't delete it so we just gotta shut the whole thing down and find a new place to go you're retarded

>>5977 >btw not gonna lie, if something can't be used to share pizza without getting caught shat ain't secure, period Yeah, the grugq says it like this >If your secure communications platform isn’t being used by terrorists and pedophiles, you’re probably doing it wrong Those two groups attract the most ire on the internet. Especially terrorists. If you're planning to dick on US citizens then you've got multiple state funded intelligence agencies after you who are not realistically bound by any laws.

>>5791 You do have a solid point, I do think some people, here and elsewhere for that matter do tend to go overboard with piracy; if you are just chatting with a friend about this season's anime or swapping recipes then hell, even Skype or Facebook Messager is fine. And that use case is what I'd imagine most people online do. Most people are boring as hell, to be honest. But maybe there is that one person who needs to whistle blow something. That's where things get hairy. Or what about people in parts of the world where dissent is squashed? Or people are persecuted for who they are, like LGBT people in the Middle East? In America, you are right, for now at least.

>>6046 >I do think some people, here and elsewhere for that matter do tend to go overboard with piracy; >Most people are boring as hell, to be honest. That's not really the point. The day you actually need privacy for something you are going to raise a big red flag by doing something radically different to what you normally do. You need to mix the private with the trivial otherwise you are doing it wrong. You also shouldn't ignore the corporate information hoarding. Everything you say in an insecure app becomes part of your advertising profile and will be shared behind your back. It doesn't matter how boring you think people's conversations are, if you wouldn't expect people to open their windows and shout their personal conversations through a megaphone then you shouldn't expect them to use Skype and FB messenger.

>>6039 It makes me happy that anyone here is out of certain loops. That loop in particular.

>>6050 >Mix private with trivial You mean, like mix my usual topics with my more personal topics? If you don't mind, can you write out an example of that? >Corporate info hoarding I'll admit, that did slip my mind. I don't actually use Skype mostly because co-workers and friends are more easily reached via text or FB. But I am aware of my text going out to megacorps enough to know if I have something truly private it better not be on all of these apps like kik or Skype.

>>6039 no I obviously wasn't, what kind of creep are you

I set up a single RIot.im account for encrypted chat. Fun so far.

>>6057 >You mean, like mix my usual topics with my more personal topics? If you don't mind, can you write out an example of that? Admittedly much of the context was implied by the post I was responding to but this is a particularly stupid way of interpreting it. >>6046 >if you are just chatting with a friend about this season's anime or swapping recipes then hell, even Skype or Facebook Messager is fine. My point was that if you live your whole life on Skype and then 1 day install Signal, you are drawing a lot of attention to yourself and letting everyone know that something is up. That's why you should use privacy tools or the trivial stuff too, not just the occasional super secret thing. Otherwise you end up drawing attention to the thing you are trying to keep secret. >I am aware of my text going out to megacorps enough to know if I have something truly private it better not be on all of these apps like kik or Skype. This kind of attitude comes from not understanding how much can be inferred and predicted about you based on the information you "let" them have.

>>6074 Okay, I think I understand a lot better. Basically, instead of avoiding privacy tools until I actually need it, it would be smarter to use both. It's not that using privacy tools in and of itself is a sign that I have something to hide but if I'm behaving like everyone else for years then suddenly change out of the blue and start using Signal like you said, then even the everyman is aware that something is not right or whatever. Well, the cool thing is that it's not like I never ever used privacy tools before, maybe I should get back into using private chatting tools.

>>5784 >not really secure IRC is perfectly secure if you require your users to use SSL, which the lainchan IRC does.

>>5794 >Convince me why this new flavour of the month Discord-Telegram substitute is better than XMPP or SIP in 3 sentences or less. Any reasons we should use something else over XMPP with OTR? Short version: > Install > encryption, voip, file transfer, ... everything just werks Long version: I use it for voice/video calls and sending pictures because it works pretty well on android and even on desktop (not counting the electron client being a memory hog). Also encryption seems to work alright without the necessity to install/configure anything. And that is essential if you are trying to make your gf to use it. XMPP is clearly superior when it comes to unencrypted text communication, but getting encryption, video calls, etc. work everywhere is not straightforward - normal people won't ever use it.

So what DO the pizza partiers use for one on one/group communication, if they are the gold standard?

>>you are trying to make your gf to use it. Well, if so, your personal vagina is already drezzled beyond recovery since she is unable to come up with ticking a few checkboxes in GUI by herself.

>>6602 ICQ over freenet

>>6605 I'm afraid that describes disturbingly high percentage of people. >>6607 Hardcore Anyway, does anyone have some experience with using universal IM clients like Pidgin to connect to Matrix? There is purple-matrix, but it describes itself as "somewhat alpha" and the development doesn't look exactly fast. Plus it lacks encryption support.

I'd give matrix another few months at least to mature, with more good clients that aren't riot. However, I also think that, in a couple years, there really will be no reason to use anything but matrix for IM/chat. It checks all the boxes for me.

>>5794 >did you just assume my protocol usage ? topkek

>>6050 >You also shouldn't ignore the corporate information hoarding. Everything you say in an insecure app becomes part of your advertising profile and will be shared behind your back. >i got a big package in the mail from my ISP >whatsthis.jpeg >mfw it was IRL equivalent of spam clickbait for insurance and other bullsoykaf just to recap, i did not use encrypted anonymous internet connections via i2p or TOR, now my ISP is giving my information to advertisers who are sending me paper junk mail VIA MY ISP

Did anyone find out how Riot/New Vector Ltd is making money? The development of Riot must cost quite a lot and I didn't find out how they are getting money out of it except for brief "Paid hosting plans coming soon." on the "Riot is free" page. Combined with their funky privacy policy this makes me a little worried. At least Matrix devs themselves mention their sponsors, non-profit status, are begging for money, etc.

>>7792 Oh I guess this explains the situation in detail: https://matrix.org/blog/2018/01/29/status-partners-up-with-new-vector-fueling-decentralised-comms-and-the-matrix-ecosystem/

it's great, but the server eats up ram like no tomorrow. i'm planning on hosting a matrix instance (node?) after they finish redoing it, though.

>>5794 >rocketchat How does it compare? I only recently found out about it.

>>5804 >If you really need security then tox is probably more the way to go. How to even tox anymore? The only decent client was toxic, the GUI ones not only are soykaf but constantly break besides being fuarrrking heavy. Since toxic got shot out the tox repo no one cares for it anymore and the bug tracking in github is no man's land. I've been using it for over a year, almost exclusively, and had nothing to complain about it so far, but at the moment pretty tempted to ditch it for matrix, even though I prefer the principles stated by tox, and would without a doubt prefer to use if it was viable at all.

>>5791 Dude, it's not the "value" of personal information, it's about ability to spread your thoughts freely and having the ability to say to people whatever you want without a fear of being monitored and tracked. Most people associate "caring about your privacy" with criminals, and this is a wrong way to look at it. It's all about ideals, not just practical reasons.