Matrix was built to become the open communication of the web and serve everyone. But, as the Internet and email did, its network effect started with governments. Today, and as proven by the audience in the room, most European governments and several others are either using it or looking at implementing it for their communications. This talk will tell the story of how we got there and why.
Criticism of the matrix protocol: https://hackea.org/notas/matrix.html.
I will not access the posted video as it’s hosted on hostile infrastructure. I request that the author share their videos in a way that honours freedom. Continuing to use the current provider is to enforce the existing monopoly on video distribution and is counter productive to libre software. I will list some viable alternatives: Mediagoblin: https://mediagoblin.org/; Peertube: https://joinpeertube.org/; or via BitTorrent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent.
I will not use the matrix protocol due to its origin with Israel’s intelligence community. Its design is nonsensical in the contexts of liberty, privacy and cryptography. However the design is strikingly coherent if the goal was to design an encrypted communication protocol that was ‘decentralised’, but still auditable by external agents. This design is why government agencies would consider its adoption, but knowing its origins I can not endorse it.
Here you go: https://media.ccc.de/v/matrix-conf-2025-74985-how-matrix-is-becoming-the-communication-standard-for-public-sector I get the adversity to YouTube, but the media.ccc link was literally one click away… I find that there is a fine line between having principles and being pedantic.
There was no way for me to know there would be a link to an alternate host in (I’m assuming) the description of the youtube video. It’s not one click away either. You have to allow youtube to run foreign javascript, otherwise you are presented with a blank page. That is to say you have to enable Google’s surveillance before you’re allowed to see a link that may or may not be there (and in this case there was no indication such a link would exist). Why didn’t the author link to the nonspyware host? Hosting video is a cost Google bears to surveil traffic. If you visit youtube to click on a link to a nonspyware host without loading any video resources you’ve given over data that usually would require a penalty from Google (serving the video). Google hosts videos to lure traffic to surveil. It is incorrect and misleading to say it’s “literally one click away”. That euphemism hides the reality, which is you have to submit to Google’s surveillance and malware.
I will take this opportunity to remind people that Google is killing others. They’re selling their AI services to the Americans and the Israelis. They’re enabling a genocide.
You sound suspiciously robotic. Artificial even
I think a messaging server should store messages only until they are delivered. It shouldn’t have access to who sent it, only where they are going.
Matrix keeps a massive stack of metadata on the server, because the server takes care of the protocol and it needs all that metadata.
However you can’t loose data you never aggregated.
Matrix can be configured to clear logs and history on whatver basis you want it to. XMPP is a bit better by default but its not like you can’t log messages on a regular basis from any platform. Its up to server operators to set things up securely.
I know that you can configure synapse to delete messages. However every federated server only operates on their own delete scedule and you as the reciever can’t see the messages then anymore. Which I think is stupid.
The messages should only be stored on the reciever device after they were delivered and deleted on the transfering server.
So you want the client to save them instead?
What if they’re using a web client? Browser storage? Unencrypted or do they need to enter a pw every time they log in?
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I think this would be very difficult to do correctly, especially in a manner that would work for people whose first question isn’t how much metadata the server has access to
Speaking from experience, matrix is still kinda rough around the edges if you have a 100+ person group with non-technical users.
More broadly, pretty much all of the secure messengers currently have an ~O(N^2) problem with state sync in groups. The only one that isn’t deeply frustrating is Signal and that’s largely because it has very few features and can’t be self hosted.
It sucks because it feels SOOOO close. I had my own server setup but setting up a client was so very hard. And it was hard to explain to friends/family how to set it up.
My CPU on my tiny server was being used like crazy for matrix.
I switched from synapse to continuwuity about 9 months ago and it has been a MUCH better experience. Also switched from Element to Sable recently and it is a much more comfortable and reliable client. Not much more complicated to set up than Discord IMHO.
ugh matrix sucks and I wish it wasn’t the preferred form of communication for everyone on fedi.
once fluxxer gets federation I’m gonna be done with matrix forever.
Had me at Matrix sucks, then lost me at Fluxer
fair enough. but most of what we use matrix for is chatting, meme channels, and gaming. and the voice features on fluxer are better than matrix, especially since not all matrix clients even support voice.
Try Sable, a new matrix client. Its voice features made me start using Matrix for gaming, recently.
OK, Sable is fucking amazing. there’s like three other people on the FAF matrix that are using it now, thanks for the recommendation!
Glad you liked it!
As a person who just switched to it (I’ve been daily driving it on my phone/PC for the past couple weeks) I’m also really enjoying it. The devs are very active, definitely worth following their space.
