6 ms·

This isn’t a case of NIH; France has adopted Matrix for the project, which is a lightweight fork of Riot.im combined with a large private federation of Matrix s

This isn’t a case of NIH; France has adopted Matrix for the project, which is a lightweight fork of Riot.im combined with a large private federation of Matrix servers. The whole thing is open source (although not public yet, as it is very early days) and open standards based. At Matrix.org we’ve been providing some support to them :) It’s very exciting to see open government projects which actually grok open source and open standards.

jlpom 9y ago
As I understand Matrix is not a fork of Riot, Riot is just a client for a Matrix synapse server (there are others like WeChat) provided by the devs.
- x1798DE 9y ago
  I think he means the project is a lightweight fork of Riot.im, which is using the Matrix protocol.
- ptman 9y ago
  wechat != weechat
Vinnl 9y ago
That's great; this other article I read about this kept mentioning Telegram and how Macron used that during his campaign, so this is much better than I expected :)
- Arathorn 9y ago
  yes, the point of the project is to provide a secure and self hosted (yet interoperable for intra- and inter-government purposes) alternative to Telegram for state comms :)
tenryuu 9y ago
What would appear in a lightweight fork of Riot though? Do you just remove a lot of the fluff to make it a bit more accessible for the public/general consumer?
- Arathorn 9y ago
  you simplify the ux (eg autodiscovering the right homeserver); hook it up to directory services and/or SSO; simplify the e2e crypto UX; change the logo and branding, and have a basis to build on for whatever future custom features they need.
  - hugg 9y ago
    were doing exactly that at the place i work at, riot has too many settings and can be quite hard for a "normal" user (someone who is used to slack for example). would love some kind of integration with openid connect though, since that would enable us to easier integrate with our AD. of course we could make that ourselves but we dont have the manpower right now.
    - secfirstmd 9y ago
      Really? We are looking to use it for some of our work but are aware that the UI/UX esp around keys is a bit messy. Would be great to see how your simplifying it.
    - vertex-four 9y ago
      It has (or at least had, when I ran a server) support for CAS. JASIG CAS isn’t that difficult to set up against AD, I think Shibboleth has a plug-in that implements the protocol too.
  - stevenicr 9y ago
    This sounds great! I am looking forward to running it. But I also need an admin panel to lookup user ip addys from the past 36 hours, ability to assign moderator user roles who can see other user's ips, ban ip addys, subnets, hostnames and cidrs easily. Love to have some other needed admin options and run this! A stun / turn server to hide other user's ip addys and such as well, interception of images posted so they are scanned, exif stripped and hosted temporarily rather than giving the hoster everyone's ip info. Stuff like that. I guess blocking users from joining the huge main matrix channels through our server would cut down on the ram / processing needed.. I wonder if something like https://access.watch https://access.watch could hook into this, or if it needs something all in it's own language or what. Looking forward to this system growing.
spacenick88 9y ago
Would you say it's a correct description of Matrix to call it "Jabber/XMP without the whole XML mess and over HTTP"?
- Arathorn 9y ago
  Not really - the protocols are very different. Matrix is a way of replicating conversation history over a mesh of participating servers; a bit like a bunch of Git repositories constantly pushing commits (messages) to one another. XMPP is much lighter weight and builds on simpler message passing and pubsub primitives. You can use both to build comms systems, but they take opposite engineering and governance approaches on almost everything.
  - amelius 9y ago
    > a bit like a bunch of Git repositories constantly pushing commits (messages) to one another. Why would you need to do that? Why not just give every message a timestamp, make sure they get sent, and sort the messages on the receiver side? If you're really concerned about message order, you could give every message a unique id, and send out the id of the previous message with every message, and improve your sort function accordingly.
    - Arathorn 9y ago
      Absolute timestamps cannot be trusted in a byzantine environment, so we do precisely as you suggest - messages are transmitted with pointers to the previous message(s) in the room message graph, so you get a partial ordering within the room (just like git). We also sign the messages into a merkle graph (like git) to stop the shared datastructure being tampered with.
      - amelius 9y ago
        Ok, makes sense now, thanks!
      - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
unicornporn 9y ago
I'm so glad Matrix/Riot.im is getting some traction. This and https://blog.status.im/status-invests-5m-in-riot-im-4e3026a8bd50 https://blog.status.im/status-invests-5m-in-riot-im-4e3026a8... may be two important steps.
pmlnr 9y ago
I would've liked better if they'd gone to extend XMPP clients to do audio/video, but this is ok as well.
- jsilence 9y ago
  jitsi does this.
sl956 9y ago
Actually the source seem to be already available here: https://github.com/dinsic-pim https://github.com/dinsic-pim
amelius 9y ago
> This isn’t a case of NIH Makes sense as the title says "due to surveillance risk".
Promarged 9y ago
> France has adopted Matrix for the project Could you provide a source for this?
- Arathorn 9y ago
  I'm the project lead for Matrix. Failing that, on the French side there's been some press where they've confirmed the system is built on Matrix & Riot (https://www.nextinpact.com/news/106463-la-france-travaille-a-messagerie-detat-chiffree-pour-cet-ete.htm https://www.nextinpact.com/news/106463-la-france-travaille-a..., although it's behind a paywall), plus others have spotted the Github repository too.
  - Promarged 9y ago
    Thanks!
- StavrosK 9y ago
  I'm guessing he is the source.
walterbell 9y ago
Is Matrix planning to use MLS for interop with other E2E systems? https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/mls/about/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/mls/about/
- Arathorn 9y ago
  Good question. We're participating on the periphery of the MLS discussions, mainly to try to encourage the MLS team to consider and support decentralised use cases. At the moment there's a temptation to go for a simpler approach which assumes there's a centralised sequencing server which solves all the races you otherwise get (and which have plagued us in Matrix whilst implementing Megolm). However, assuming a centralised focal point for each group conversation kills the whole point of decentralisation, so we're trying to ensure it's not designed out. See https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/mls/MnLJkbJ_Mwe8Oz0Ll6delGJLPz4 https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/mls/MnLJkbJ_Mwe8Oz0Ll6... for the gory details.
  - walterbell 9y ago
    Has Matrix considered developing a DMLS (D for decentralized use cases) specification for submission to IETF?
    - Arathorn 9y ago
      We may have to go down that path if MLS ends up being decentralisation unfriendly.

jlpom 9y ago

As I understand Matrix is not a fork of Riot, Riot is just a client for a Matrix synapse server (there are others like WeChat) provided by the devs.

x1798DE 9y ago
I think he means the project is a lightweight fork of Riot.im, which is using the Matrix protocol.
ptman 9y ago
wechat != weechat

Vinnl 9y ago

That's great; this other article I read about this kept mentioning Telegram and how Macron used that during his campaign, so this is much better than I expected :)

Arathorn 9y ago
yes, the point of the project is to provide a secure and self hosted (yet interoperable for intra- and inter-government purposes) alternative to Telegram for state comms :)

tenryuu 9y ago

What would appear in a lightweight fork of Riot though? Do you just remove a lot of the fluff to make it a bit more accessible for the public/general consumer?

Arathorn 9y ago
you simplify the ux (eg autodiscovering the right homeserver); hook it up to directory services and/or SSO; simplify the e2e crypto UX; change the logo and branding, and have a basis to build on for whatever future custom features they need.
- hugg 9y ago
  were doing exactly that at the place i work at, riot has too many settings and can be quite hard for a "normal" user (someone who is used to slack for example). would love some kind of integration with openid connect though, since that would enable us to easier integrate with our AD. of course we could make that ourselves but we dont have the manpower right now.
  - secfirstmd 9y ago
    Really? We are looking to use it for some of our work but are aware that the UI/UX esp around keys is a bit messy. Would be great to see how your simplifying it.
  - vertex-four 9y ago
    It has (or at least had, when I ran a server) support for CAS. JASIG CAS isn’t that difficult to set up against AD, I think Shibboleth has a plug-in that implements the protocol too.
- stevenicr 9y ago
  This sounds great! I am looking forward to running it. But I also need an admin panel to lookup user ip addys from the past 36 hours, ability to assign moderator user roles who can see other user's ips, ban ip addys, subnets, hostnames and cidrs easily. Love to have some other needed admin options and run this! A stun / turn server to hide other user's ip addys and such as well, interception of images posted so they are scanned, exif stripped and hosted temporarily rather than giving the hoster everyone's ip info. Stuff like that. I guess blocking users from joining the huge main matrix channels through our server would cut down on the ram / processing needed.. I wonder if something like https://access.watch https://access.watch could hook into this, or if it needs something all in it's own language or what. Looking forward to this system growing.

spacenick88 9y ago

Would you say it's a correct description of Matrix to call it "Jabber/XMP without the whole XML mess and over HTTP"?

Arathorn 9y ago
Not really - the protocols are very different. Matrix is a way of replicating conversation history over a mesh of participating servers; a bit like a bunch of Git repositories constantly pushing commits (messages) to one another. XMPP is much lighter weight and builds on simpler message passing and pubsub primitives. You can use both to build comms systems, but they take opposite engineering and governance approaches on almost everything.
- amelius 9y ago
  > a bit like a bunch of Git repositories constantly pushing commits (messages) to one another. Why would you need to do that? Why not just give every message a timestamp, make sure they get sent, and sort the messages on the receiver side? If you're really concerned about message order, you could give every message a unique id, and send out the id of the previous message with every message, and improve your sort function accordingly.
  - Arathorn 9y ago
    Absolute timestamps cannot be trusted in a byzantine environment, so we do precisely as you suggest - messages are transmitted with pointers to the previous message(s) in the room message graph, so you get a partial ordering within the room (just like git). We also sign the messages into a merkle graph (like git) to stop the shared datastructure being tampered with.
    - amelius 9y ago
      Ok, makes sense now, thanks!
    - greenhouse_gas 9y ago

unicornporn 9y ago

I'm so glad Matrix/Riot.im is getting some traction. This and https://blog.status.im/status-invests-5m-in-riot-im-4e3026a8bd50 https://blog.status.im/status-invests-5m-in-riot-im-4e3026a8... may be two important steps.

pmlnr 9y ago

I would've liked better if they'd gone to extend XMPP clients to do audio/video, but this is ok as well.

jsilence 9y ago
jitsi does this.

sl956 9y ago

Actually the source seem to be already available here: https://github.com/dinsic-pim https://github.com/dinsic-pim

amelius 9y ago

> This isn’t a case of NIH Makes sense as the title says "due to surveillance risk".

Promarged 9y ago

> France has adopted Matrix for the project Could you provide a source for this?

Arathorn 9y ago
I'm the project lead for Matrix. Failing that, on the French side there's been some press where they've confirmed the system is built on Matrix & Riot (https://www.nextinpact.com/news/106463-la-france-travaille-a-messagerie-detat-chiffree-pour-cet-ete.htm https://www.nextinpact.com/news/106463-la-france-travaille-a..., although it's behind a paywall), plus others have spotted the Github repository too.
- Promarged 9y ago
  Thanks!
StavrosK 9y ago
I'm guessing he is the source.

walterbell 9y ago

Is Matrix planning to use MLS for interop with other E2E systems? https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/mls/about/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/mls/about/

Arathorn 9y ago
Good question. We're participating on the periphery of the MLS discussions, mainly to try to encourage the MLS team to consider and support decentralised use cases. At the moment there's a temptation to go for a simpler approach which assumes there's a centralised sequencing server which solves all the races you otherwise get (and which have plagued us in Matrix whilst implementing Megolm). However, assuming a centralised focal point for each group conversation kills the whole point of decentralisation, so we're trying to ensure it's not designed out. See https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/mls/MnLJkbJ_Mwe8Oz0Ll6delGJLPz4 https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/mls/MnLJkbJ_Mwe8Oz0Ll6... for the gory details.
- walterbell 9y ago
  Has Matrix considered developing a DMLS (D for decentralized use cases) specification for submission to IETF?
  - Arathorn 9y ago
    We may have to go down that path if MLS ends up being decentralisation unfriendly.