while i think it'd be nice if those things weren't seen it's not that much, specially if you don't use any real life connection to your user (you'd need to hide your ip i guess). i mean, you can't go to jail for any of those things. if you want even more privacy you can stop federating. i wonder how much of this is because of synapse and if the other servers would do better. they come with tradeoffs, though, synapse is the only one that supports self destructing messages for example afaik.
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Federation never sees your client IP and device details. The same problem applies to most messaging services and protocol anyways. Do you have any better offerings?
Although that SynExtract tool in the linked paper could be nice.
Matrix was always a terrible protocol made by Zionists to embed themselves into government and corporate channels whilst posturing itself as 'secure' and independent (self-hosted). Critics said over and over: it's shit. Now those duped are getting defensive. Good ploy mossad. Overall it's been very effective.
This isn't support for Signal either. It's shit too.
The problem is users. Always has been.
i have been convinced. what do you think it's a better implementation? simplex?
Not just made by Zionists, made by notorious Israeli spyware company Amdocs.
And after moving to the UK the devs deny that Amdocs was a spyware company despite it having multiple massive spying scandals such as wiretapping White House phones https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-384876
Matrix shall be considered a "metadata-rich protocol" :(
without that metadata you'd get a pretty bare bones experience. encrypting metadata adds another layer of complexity, not everyone wants that.
signal done it pretty well
signal? the one that requires a phone number to registar? the one that has a centralized server that you can't self host basically?
Matrix can expose your device name and device details to other homeservers through federation. Profile information such as your avatar and bio can also be queried remotely. A client version is not a dedicated federation field, but it can leak through the device name. Signal at least has Sealed Sender, which hides the sender's identity from its own service in supported cases.
This is about metadata, not centralisation, self-hosting, or phone-number registration. Those are separate issues, not trade-offs.
Those are absolutely trade-offs. Do you want the app to positively ID you and tie you to your passport, or do you want the app to broadcast your set name and set identity strings to those you opt in to share it with?
You haven’t explained why I have to choose between these two trade-offs. I want neither: I want strong metadata protection without being forced to link my account to my real-world identity.
I'm replying to your statement. You proposed Signal as a point of comparison, so those are the apps to compare. They're both less than perfect if your only metric is anonymity, but their shortcomings are very different, and the shortcomings of Signal are fundamentally de-anonymising whereas Matrix is just metadata rich. But you can set your own client string, your username, your avatar, it's all information you inputted (either as a user or app developer). With Signal, the data that's shared is all controlled by Signal.
I'm not defending Matrix. If the design decisions of Matrix aren't what you want, then there's room to ask for or build an alternative. If Matrix or discourse around Matrix is misleading about what is shared then that's a good thing to highlight.
What I meant with my reply was to contrast it with Signal and communicate that Signal isn't a valid alternative. It's not the same class of service. Matrix exists to facilitate chatting with friends and Signal exists to conduct surveillance on you and your friends.
You don't have to choose between these two trade-offs. I'm not saying a third system can't be better. But any third system wasn't being evaluated in the thread I replied to.
Yet the vast majority of people won't be self-hosting, anyways, and using someone else's server.
I wonder if there is a more practical solution of having matrix servers just be encrypted message routers. Maybe even encrypt the specific users address by the home server and then have federated servers just build routing tables for each other.
So my client sends an unencrypted header saying "send this to server A" with the specific user address being encrypted with Server A's public cert, the message content stays encrypted by the users pub cert. The message gets routed over to there distant server, user address decrypted on server, content decrypted on client.
Have server data like rooms, typing status, etc just be private messages ment for users sent by the distant server it's self. Home server only sees the rooms it's managing then.
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