this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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Privacy

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Hello fellow c/privacy members.

I'm not new to privacy related things but I had a hard time persuading my family members and friends to switch to Matrix/Element. It is a reponse to UK's Online Security Bill and Investigative Powers Act that may soon in effect.

While it is just a preperation and planning in case those actually became law, I already face resistance from them. When I ask them would they switch, their first reaction is "Why one more app?" then follows with "That's cumbersome." or "I don't want to learn a new app." and suggest something more popular like Line, Telegram or Discord. Sometimes they would "Install WhatsApp because X is on there and he/she won't install one more app just for you."

What can I do to persuade them to use a new platform? Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I think I should elebroate more of what Online Security Bill and Investigative Powers Act does[1]. As far as I understand, OSB will break E2EE by require scanning data on client device, like CSAM but much more generic. IPA requires companies to submit security funcition to the government for approval before releasing, and disable such feature upon request. Apple[2], Single[3] and WhatsApp made the announancment of exiting the UK market totally or partically if two were signed into law.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/thenextweb.com/news/uk-investigatory-powers-act-default-surveillance-devices-privacy
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2023/07/21/apple-threatens-to-pull-facetime-and-imessage-from-the-uk
[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20230809125823/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-65301510#2023-08-09T12:57:48+00:00

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Which is 100% controlled by the Matrix Foundation (and not an international standard like XMPP), which in turn is near 100% controlled by a single UK based company (Element/New Vector). Which makes the distinction between the company and the protocol absolutely moot. I wish it was otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's not really true though. If the Matrix foundation, element or any other party does something scketchy just fork it

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Have you ever looked at the Synapse codebase? It's almost as bad as Chromium and we all know how impossible that is to "just fork".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

That comparison doesn't make sense. They are actively developing Dendrite alongside Synapse. They goal of Synapse is to be the stable version that just works and deploys the new features. Not necessarily being slim and efficient. That's where Dendrite comes in and is very close to being feature parity. Many major servers already are running Dendrite and you wouldn't even notice.

So if Google was actively developing a competitor to Chromium that is much more slimmed down and efficient, then your comparison would make sense.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Huh? Nothing stops you from hosting your own server they can't prevent that

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

And then? Either you never update it, which likely means you will gradually stop being able to communicate with other people on the Matrix network, or you do, which means you will get those privacy invasive changes on your own server as well. And as I extensively explained elsewhere in this thread, forking is not a realistic option.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I guess I can just remove such code if they ever implement it as the home server is open sourced (Synapse). Plus other implementation exists (Conduit). Still, I will have a look on XMPP and see if it meets my needs. As others points out, I shouldn't persuade but adapt thus I need bridges to connect other services, which Matrix isn't lack of.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I preferred xmpp because it's easier to host and consumes MUCH less RAM than a Matrix server. idk how both of them scale, but I only have myself and a few friends and family on my XMPP server and works fine.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Lemme know when there's an actual usable client for XMPP. What software do you even use to connect to XMPP?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I use Gajim, family uses Conversations.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Conversations looks like it was made for Android kit Kat lol. Are you expecting that to be the messaging app killer as a serious recommendation to people

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What do you mean? It lacks critical features?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 10 months ago