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Is there a federated and/or self-hosted alternative to Signal with similar privacy and security properties? Even if it supports fewer platforms? I've been gett

Is there a federated and/or self-hosted alternative to Signal with similar privacy and security properties? Even if it supports fewer platforms? I've been getting more and more interested in running my own (and perhaps my friends') infrastructure, but I haven't found anything better than IRC for chat.

sschueller 10y ago
I run a Synapse server (http://matrix.org/ http://matrix.org/) which is federated and works very well. There are many clients but the nicest at the moment is Riot. Full encryption is now available in the Riot webclient and it's coming to the app soon.
- berdario 10y ago
  I'm just a Matrix (and Signal) user, I haven't yet had a look into its encryption implementation yet, but for those who are interested, I think these are the docs: http://matrix.org/speculator/spec/drafts%2Fe2e/client_server/unstable.html#end-to-end-encryption http://matrix.org/speculator/spec/drafts%2Fe2e/client_server...
  - Arathorn 10y ago
    There's also https://matrix.org/docs/guides/e2e_implementation.html https://matrix.org/docs/guides/e2e_implementation.html for those interested in the guts of Matrix's E2E and https://matrix.org/docs/spec/olm.html https://matrix.org/docs/spec/olm.html and https://matrix.org/docs/spec/megolm.html https://matrix.org/docs/spec/megolm.html itself. We're currently reviewing the PRs for E2E on the iOS & Android SDKs, and after they land apps like Riot will have (beta) E2E across all of Web/iOS/Android :)
- nextos 10y ago
  Came in to suggest Matrix and its client http://riot.im http://riot.im. Otherwise XMPP with http://conversations.im http://conversations.im is also a great option.
schlowmo 10y ago
> "but I haven't found anything better than IRC for chat" If IRC was your best bet so far, you might want to have a look at good ol' XMPP aka Jabber. If you're into Android, with Conversations [0] there's a suitable client which supports end-to-end encryption. For other OS there are many other choices with different encryption options. While OTR (Off-The-Record Messaging) might be the most popular one, it unfortunately makes multi-device-support kind of a bumpy experience. [0] https://conversations.im/ https://conversations.im/
- lima 10y ago
  Conversations is one of the highest-quality apps I've ever used. Buy it! It's XMPP with everything you'd expect. Inline image, videos, presence, everything. (if you cannot buy it, you can get it for free from FDroid but really, buy it!)
alltakendamned 10y ago
Run an IRC server on 127.0.0.1 on a dedicated server you control and allow access over SSH only. Connect to IRC through a command line client in a tmux session or similar.
jhasse 10y ago
What about XMPP / Jabber?

sschueller 10y ago

I run a Synapse server (http://matrix.org/ http://matrix.org/) which is federated and works very well. There are many clients but the nicest at the moment is Riot. Full encryption is now available in the Riot webclient and it's coming to the app soon.

berdario 10y ago
I'm just a Matrix (and Signal) user, I haven't yet had a look into its encryption implementation yet, but for those who are interested, I think these are the docs: http://matrix.org/speculator/spec/drafts%2Fe2e/client_server/unstable.html#end-to-end-encryption http://matrix.org/speculator/spec/drafts%2Fe2e/client_server...
- Arathorn 10y ago
  There's also https://matrix.org/docs/guides/e2e_implementation.html https://matrix.org/docs/guides/e2e_implementation.html for those interested in the guts of Matrix's E2E and https://matrix.org/docs/spec/olm.html https://matrix.org/docs/spec/olm.html and https://matrix.org/docs/spec/megolm.html https://matrix.org/docs/spec/megolm.html itself. We're currently reviewing the PRs for E2E on the iOS & Android SDKs, and after they land apps like Riot will have (beta) E2E across all of Web/iOS/Android :)
nextos 10y ago
Came in to suggest Matrix and its client http://riot.im http://riot.im. Otherwise XMPP with http://conversations.im http://conversations.im is also a great option.

schlowmo 10y ago

> "but I haven't found anything better than IRC for chat" If IRC was your best bet so far, you might want to have a look at good ol' XMPP aka Jabber. If you're into Android, with Conversations [0] there's a suitable client which supports end-to-end encryption. For other OS there are many other choices with different encryption options. While OTR (Off-The-Record Messaging) might be the most popular one, it unfortunately makes multi-device-support kind of a bumpy experience. [0] https://conversations.im/ https://conversations.im/

lima 10y ago
Conversations is one of the highest-quality apps I've ever used. Buy it! It's XMPP with everything you'd expect. Inline image, videos, presence, everything. (if you cannot buy it, you can get it for free from FDroid but really, buy it!)

alltakendamned 10y ago

Run an IRC server on 127.0.0.1 on a dedicated server you control and allow access over SSH only. Connect to IRC through a command line client in a tmux session or similar.

jhasse 10y ago

What about XMPP / Jabber?