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Matrix and Riot Confirmed as the Basis for France’s Secure Instant Messenger App
- aw3c2 8y agoWill this make end-to-end encryption finally get the polish it needs?
- TeddyBear060 8y agoI don't know yet a lot about Matrix but it's a wonderful step forward for government independence.
- SiempreViernes 8y agoWho knows, polish is not something that's really needed for enterprise since the employees can often simply be forced to use the tools almost regardless of their state.
- hoschicz 8y agoDo you feel like WhatsApp is not polished?
- lucb1e 8y agoIf polish is broadly defined as "something that was hitherto still missing in (claimed-to-be) end to end encrypted chat applications", then open source and a decent profit model are definitely features lacking from WhatsApp. Telegram is open source, but one has to consciously turn on encryption and it doesn't work on the web or desktop clients (and the profit model is non-existent). Signal doesn't work without Google services and requires a phone number and turned-on phone iirc (and their profit model seems to be extorting companies like Wire and helping closed source software like Whatsapp advertise with Signal-level encryption). Wire is the best of all, but the Android app drains battery and everything is web (slow, bulky; Electron). None of the above work in a decentralized manner, either. I don't know much about Matrix or Riot.im (from what I remembered, it was a implemented IRC alternative), but if it delivers on all of the above (and the article sure sounds like it), then it's definitely polishing up some final features that were still missing!
- cdancette 8y agoTelegram is not really open source. The server is not, and the Android code is updated months after each update, all commits being squashed(see issue[1]). Also their new app (Telegram X) is not open source. [1] https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/pull/1431 https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/pull/1431
- zeratax 8y agoyou can use signal without any google services though, for more than a year now even. related commit: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/commit/1669731329bcc32c84e33035a67a2fc22444c24b https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/commit/166973132... pretty difficult to find the raw apk though: https://signal.org/android/apk/ https://signal.org/android/apk/ about matrix: you will probably end up having to use the electron riot app for a while, but the community is working hard on native clients, but afaik no client has e2ee in any usable state implemented yet (but a lot of progress is being made). I think the matrix.org team acts as a non-profit organisation, but most of the core team is also hired by New Vector where, I think the planned profit model is to run matrix instances as a service. there's some stuff about the funding in the faq: https://matrix.org/docs/guides/faq.html#what-kind-of-company-is-matrixorg https://matrix.org/docs/guides/faq.html#what-kind-of-company...
- lucb1e 8y ago> you can use signal without any google services though, for more than a year now even. I tried it less than a year ago, because I had heard that too, but it still didn't work. I should try again on my new phone I guess.
- snthd 8y ago>Signal doesn't work without Google services Not true, it has a websockets alternative to gcm. >and requires a phone number The phone number can be anything you control. >and turned-on phone iirc Yes >(and their profit model seems to be extorting companies like Wire and helping closed source software like Whatsapp advertise with Signal-level encryption). It (now) has its own nonprofit backing it (and a generous benefactor). It's not trying to be profitable. The "extortion" thing seems to have been about wire using signal code in breach of copyright (ie not complying with the open source license). Signal has stated that the goal of working with WhatsApp (and others) is to make good crypto be used as widely as possible. Matrix crypto is also based on what's used in signal. >Wire is the best of all, but the Android app drains battery and everything is web Signal is very polished (at least on Android - I'm not familiar with the ios app).
- xkarga00 8y agoDo you really believe that Facebook (US company) has not complied with the US goverment and WhatsApp is safe for private communication?
- SlowRobotAhead 8y agoRight!? Anyone who believes Facebook's WhatsApp is actually end to end encrypted and gives no access to the message data is laughably naive.
- renaudg 8y agoI don't usual respond to conspiracist posts, but maybe you're going to take Moxie Marlinspike's word for it ? https://signal.org/blog/whatsapp-complete/ https://signal.org/blog/whatsapp-complete/
- HIPisTheAnswer 8y agoConspiracy theories aside, why would anyone's word be sufficient? How about the code? Give us the code, then we don't need anyone's promises. Enough with promises!
- xkarga00 8y agoEven the code is not enough, is it? Once you have it, how do you know that's what they deploy?
- HIPisTheAnswer 8y agoI deploy my own code.
- emilfihlman 8y agoWhatsApp has horrible user experience compared to Telegram. And that's low hanging fruit.
- dontchooseanick 8y agoDo you feel like WhatsApp is open-source and can be found on f-droid ?
- amandine 8y agoWithin Riot, polishing e2e is already top of our priority list, but yes it definitely doesn’t harm having high profile entities like this expecting it.
- Arathorn 8y agoyes.
- TeddyBear060 8y agoGreat to read this kind of news! I can't wait to see the end product (this summer 2018) :)
- sys13 8y agoDoes this make freedom of information requests less useful to the public?
- TeddyBear060 8y agoWhat do you mean ?
- lazzlazzlazz 8y agoIf progressively more governmental communications are made through encrypted means, we cannot access them as citizens.
- edbaskerville 8y agoYeah, end-to-end encryption is strange here. Aren't there laws in France to ensure retention of government employee communications?
- Akujin 8y agoThe open-source Matrix.org server Synapse has everything in plaintext on the server.
- TeddyBear060 8y agoThanks, I understand but those communications are not supposed to be accessible. This tool will be used by top level gouvernement employees.
- amandine 8y agoIndeed
- pjc50 8y agoIf they're subject to records retention requirements, they should be retained anyway; and if they're not, they're in the same category as things like phone calls which are currently ephemeral. (Note that in first world countries phone calls will be digital everywhere except maybe the last mile, and GSM and upwards are digital to the handset)
- rzr 8y agowill it erode trust ? or the opposite ?
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoDo the French make their own hardware? An encryption app is useless if you don't 100% trust the hardware. Tainted hardware could figure out, log and send your keystrokes from screen taps/swipes all from silicon.
- TeddyBear060 8y agoYou're totally right. But it's a step forward anyway. Perhaps that hardware will come after.
- pjc50 8y agoTThis is a rather extreme threat model given how expensive it is to carry out and very obvious once discovered. But France does have some domestic defence capability here - Thales make hardware security modules and similar products, and STMicroelectronics has chip design expertise while being partly state-owned.
- Jaepa 8y agoIts a fallacy of composition to say that better security useless unless its perfect security. This is better that it was before. More security is better. Perfect security does not and cannot realistically exist for a complex system. I do think have a reproducible binary would be a huge win. Even if you can't verify the integrity of a single build you could verify that build by consensus.
- HIPisTheAnswer 8y agoReproducible builds are what nix is good at. Synapse is already well packaged, but Riot has the problem of using electron, which was never fully packaged on `nixpkgs`. Maybe someone with the right skills will be willing to do that. Bonus: vscode and others get better support on nix. https://nixos.org/nix/ https://nixos.org/nix/
- rosser 8y agoYou aren't wrong, but most people's threat model doesn't include defense against state-level actors — because for most people there isn't a defense against state-level actors. Apparently, though, people whose threat model isn't dialed up to 11 don't deserve security or privacy?
- jaequery 8y agowell, this is what scares me. because, the conversation may be encrypted (protocol, packets), but still messages can be accessible by the powers that be through variety of means. especially considering they "forked" it, who knows what they will do with it (log keystrokes, take screenshots, in the disguise of diagnostic reasons?). anytime you are reading a message from your app, or sending a message, the app have all the powers to capture the data in its raw form before transmission, encrypt it with some key that only they have control of, etc. so unless the gov't releases their source code to be truly open (which even then i don't see how you will ever know), you won't get the transparency you need. encryption is such a buzzword, people think anything encrypted means you are fully secure. this is simply false.
- Akujin 8y agoWhen an encrypted conversation is setup properly with Matrix.org you get a notification every time a new device appears in the chatroom and you have to manually whitelist it. Even if you already whitelisted one of the devices for a known user. Furthermore you can host the server yourself on an HTTPS server. It's way more secure than Facebook messenger or SMS.
- Jaepa 8y agoFrom the 2nd paragraph: We understand the whole project is going to be released entirely open source (other than the operational bits) – development is well under way and an early proof of concept is already circulating within various government entities. But if it has interop with the matrix, you should just be able to use Riot.
- cpa 8y agoThe app is developed for use within the government. In which case, a keylogger in the app makes as much sense as a keylogger on any civil servant's workstation or professional phone. At some point, if you work for the government you have to use and trust the tools at your disposal. You are part of the executive power, after all.
- kqr 8y agoAs someone else said: Matrix is an open protocol spec. If they use Matrix, then you can choose to use any client and not just their client. If they require their custom client, it could be argued they are no longer using Matrix.
- rb808 8y agoI tried matrix/riot out, looks perfect for me and app is slick. Sending messages though from a server to a room was more difficult than I expected. Java SDK didn't build and many of the other languages were alpha too. Go seemed favored but I dont really want to install. Is there a recommended simple command line app or script to send messages?
- Arathorn 8y agocurl? O:-) Matrix is intended to be simple enough that you don’t even need an SDK unless you really want one. which java sdk did you try?
- rb808 8y agothanks, I thought it was a bit more complicated with session ids etc, will look at keeping it simple again. I used the Java SDK from Kamax that was on https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now.html https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now.html. would be nice if there are others. I'm excited about it though - is just what I've been looking for.
- maxidorius 8y agoI am the author of the SDK - feel free to open an issue on the github repo or come in the dedicated Matrix room #matrix-java-sdk:kamax.io and we'll get you started.
- sli 8y ago
- lucb1e 8y agoDoes anyone know more about this Netherlands thing it refers to? I can't find anything in relation to the Dutch government and usage of this FOSS communication tool.
- amandine 8y agoIt’s just early discussions between governments
- ericfrederich 8y agoNever heard of Matrix... looked it up; gross... python2.7
- kuschku 8y agoAlso take a look at the network "protocol": JSON over HTTP longpolling, requiring usually a separate socket for each batch of messages sent or received (unless HTTP/2 is available, then it’s a bit less expensive, still has a massive overhead). Matrix has so much potential – someday, when it’s built on technologically more ideal foundations. Python2.7 you’ll barely notice, but the network overhead of the Matrix protocol becomes heavily noticeable by the end user (especially if your cell phone’s data plan runs out, and you’re stuck on 64kbps until the end of the month, then Matrix in larger rooms just becomes impossible)
- vbezhenar 8y agoI think HTTP Keep Alive mechanism should help with sockets and it does not require HTTP/2.
- amandine 8y agoThe spec only states the use of JSON over HTTP as a baseline so anyone is welcome to implement more efficient transports like CBOR/COAP or MQTT or whatever :) But yes the goal of the reference implementations was to showcase the simplest transport: one PUT to send and one GET to retrieve it. Meanwhile we’re working on improving the performance of the servers with some rather nice breakthroughs on the horizon.
- kuschku 8y agoAs I said, the potential is there, the current implementations just aren’t there yet. In a few years it might be entirely different. And I’m not sure PUT and GET are the simplest solution, I’d think a simple socket over which messages are transmitted in both directions would be simpler than implementing an entire HTTP stack.
- foobarbazetc 8y agoDon’t suppose anyone knows why the Signal protocol wasn’t chosen?
- pmlnr 8y agoBecause when you build something like this, you shouldn't: - requiere a phone - build on s3 & a lot of other services without the option of a self hosted alternative. Look up the signal server requirements.
- superkuh 8y agoYup. Signal sounds great but I can't use it because I don't have (or want) a smartphone with a phone number. I use Matrix clients instead.
- amandine 8y agoBecause Signal is centralized. With Matrix they can deploy different servers across the gouvernement which interoperate. And potentially open it to the wider Matrix ecosystem
- subway 8y agoSignal, the service is centralized, but there's no reason that Signal, the protocol can't be. In fact before Moxie went on his silly "only I can do security right" rampage, Signal was federated with a server hosted by CyanogenMod.
- mindB 8y agoThe E2EE in matrix is actually based on the double ratchet from the Signal protocol. So you could think of the E2E in matrix as just a federated version of Signal. :)
- subway 8y agoA point in moxie's favor is that the e2ee ux in matrix is currently extremely painful. I'm willing to use it on a couple rooms that consist entirely of geeks, but don't want to subject non-geeks to the whole verification process.
- youseecomrade 8y agoI don't know much about licenses: is Matrix and/or the protocol safe from Facebook, Google and co to pull the same thing again? Feels like EEE is inevitable when these companies allocate resources to provide a better UI/UX and benefits in their own services.
- Jaepa 8y agoI have no clue what you are trying to ask, sorry. Could you clarify? Do you mean IP lawsuit's against Matrix itself?
- majewsky 8y agoI guess grandparent means how Google (and later Slack) initially supported XMPP in their chat products, then disabled the XMPP gateway once their userbase was significantly large that most conversations were inside their own bubble. There's not much that Matrix can do to defend against that, except for strategic marketing with the purpose of achieving a large distributed userbase. If Gmail had existed in 1990, we would not have a decentralized e-mail network today. If Gmail had got into a position where they served 99% of all e-mail users, they would've pulled the plug on mail delivery to third-party mail servers and e-mail as we know it would've been dead.
- forty 8y agoIsn't that what is slowly happening? My understanding is that it's becoming harder and harder to send email to a Gmail address of you are not yourself using Gmail (without being tagged as spam/junk I mean)
- doomrobo 8y agoWhat protocol? If you look at spec on their website[0] you'll see 4/5 of the protocols are still marked unstable. Take room state resolution as an example. It has pretty important security implications and it's nontrivial in a distributed setting. The algorithm is not stabilized, and it comes with a warning in the specification: Warning: This section documents the state resolution algorithm as implemented by Synapse as of December 2017 (and therefore the de-facto Matrix protocol). However, this algorithm is known to have some problems. I really like the idea of Matrix, but it seems a little immature for a government to use as a standardized messaging protocol. [0] https://matrix.org/docs/spec/ https://matrix.org/docs/spec/ [1] https://matrix.org/docs/spec/server_server/unstable.html#room-state-resolution https://matrix.org/docs/spec/server_server/unstable.html#roo...
- alexkavon 8y agoYep. Their docs inspire little hope that the protocol will be little more than niche. How to build on top of this protocol without requiring someone with domain specific knowledge is beyond what's offered. Cue XKCD protocols comic.
- Arathorn 8y agoRight now there are 4.5M registered users on the matrix.org HS alone, so I’m not sure niche is right ;)
- tacoman 8y agoAn interesting number would be how many GCM/APN devices are registered in the matrix.org sygnal server. All of the Matrix/Riot users I know use private, non-federated home servers, but still rely on the project's Sygnal server(s) for push notifications.
- Qwertie 8y agoPhone number/email verification is also still centralized as no one has worked out any other way.
- j4pe 8y agoI had to roll my own chat system recently because the open source solutions out there were surprisingly insufficient - nothing seems to support websockets. Looking forward to the French contributions to the ecosystem! For instance: at the moment Matrix server implementations expect clients like Riot to long-poll for JSON about each room/chat they're connected to. Alternatives like Prosody's XMPP server implementation dropped websocket support in favor of BOSH years ago. I wonder why this is - maybe there's just less developer interest since chat has gone mobile, and mobile devices break ws connections so frequently? But it's obvious that chat clients like FB messenger, whatsapp, slack, etc are establishing ws connections. Strange.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jkarneges 8y agoNetwork overhead aside, long polling can be a pretty wonderful interface. “Give me what I don’t have yet, else let me know when there is something” makes for reliable transmission that is hard to screw up. Long polling requests can work idempotently and recover from network failures automatically. I think it’s an especially wise starting point.
- Promarged 8y ago
- kuwze 8y agoIt's sort of ironic considering France's history with Minitel[0] and encryption[1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel [1]: https://www.forbes.com/forbes/1997/1201/6012058a.html#75b6a624262f https://www.forbes.com/forbes/1997/1201/6012058a.html#75b6a6... Specifically from [1] is the line: "Its illegal in France to encrypt any communication in any way unless you have permission from the government. How is electronic commerce going to get off the ground in such a society? Good question, which appears not to have occurred to the authorities."
- Arathorn 8y agoI would see this as a positive step - it’s a lot harder to legislate against E2E crypto for the populous when the govt is relying on it :)
- riazrizvi 8y agoIt's pretty common. Almost all EU governments reserve the right to decrypt encrypted communications by law, also India, Russia, China, Australia. Here's a map https://www.gp-digital.org/world-map-of-encryption/ https://www.gp-digital.org/world-map-of-encryption/, click 'Powers to intercept...'
- Jaepa 8y agoI've always wondered about that. The law says Criminal Procedure Code: Article 230, modified by Law No. 2001-1062 and Law No. 2014-1353 requires the disclosure of encryption keys upon the authorization of a judge. So what happens if the connection uses diffie-hellman or double ratchet (as Matrix can use)? the intermediate doesn't have any useful keys to turn over.
- SiempreViernes 8y agoI expect you get convicted for not turning over the keys I assume, unless its clear that some other service provided made that technical choice for you in which case hopefully they get convicted.
- 8y ago
- marknadal 8y agoCongrats Matrix team! That is huge. Competitor here, few questions: - You guys are currently implementing federated protocols, right? We do P2P protocols, I'm curious why you guys chose federated - why do you think it is better? - How are you guys different than Signal? Obviously way different than Telegram, as it isn't even Open Source (thanks for Open Sourcing your work!). - When I was working on our E2EE private messaging app (ugly demo here: https://twitter.com/marknadal/status/989602258638684160 https://twitter.com/marknadal/status/989602258638684160 ), I ran into problems about metadata. Stuff like, do you guys reveal which public keys are talking to which other public keys? And the frequency of those conversations? Or do you encrypt that information as well (and if you do, how do you handle discovery then, and is it vulnerable to network frequency analysis attacks?) Awesome work, congrats again, keep it up! Curious to hear more about your architecture.
- ATsch 8y ago> why federated, not decentralized? afaict, Matrix is both, kind of. Rooms are decentralized, while users are federated. > What about signal? Signal is great, but it solves a very different problem. It's a good replacement for talking to your best friends on your phone. But it fails quickly once you go past that. No true multi-device, no talking without releasing your phone number, no public groups. No mentions, no permalinks. In that regard, I'd say matrix is closer to telegram and irc than WhatsApp or Signal > what about metadata? The state of metadata in E2E is... not good. Really, only the content of the message is secret. There are a number of ideas how to deal with this.
- acct1771 8y ago> Signal is great, but it solves a very different problem. It's a good replacement for talking to your best friends on your phone. Riot does this pretty well, and when it's not alpha/beta, it'll probably do it really well.
- jhasse 8y agoTelegram's clients are open source.
- joeblow9999 8y agoI won't be using a 'secure' messaging app built by the govt any time soon...
- Xylakant 8y agoAFAIK, this is mostly intended as a secure messenger _for_ the government. Which makes sense - what are they supposed to use? WhatsApp? Twitter DM? Skype for Governments? But even if you’re not in the target demographic, you might benefit: The government will run a large installation and hopefully some code will find its way back to the OS version.
- kqr 8y ago> Skype for Governments? I want to type this into a search bar to see if it's a thing... but simultaneuosly I'm terrified of the prospect of discovering that it is.
- Xylakant 8y agoI don’t think it exists as a product, but I’d totally not be surprised if Skype for Business is used in government branches.
- shakna 8y ago> I’d totally not be surprised if Skype for Business is used in government branches. It is, or at least Centrelink, Medicare, NDIS and Veteran's Affairs use it in Australia. Wouldn't be surprised if it was also used outside of DHHS.
- jrq 8y agoWhy is the world so desperate to pretend that irc doesn't exist? Why can't we just get a new irc spec with e2e in mind? Matrix is an extremely immature project and the French gov is making an irresponsible move here to prop it up as a solution in any capacity. It's beta software! Where are the audits? Where are the formal verifications? Not that irc has those, I don't mean to juxtapose one not-good-enough product with another, but this is reaching a point of insanity. If you want security, use signal. If you don't trust signal, learn to trust scores of world renowned cryptographers, and use it anyways. And if you're still bored, renovate irc. Gosh this is just crazy. It's like saying the tesla 3 will be the authorized taxi vehicle on Mars. There's so much work yet to be done, it's a million years too early to start regulating and organizing something that's not even half built.
- noahster11 8y agoI think the problem with Signal is that it requires a phone number to sign up: which some people may not feel comfortable doing. On the other hand irc is nice, but it doesn't exactly have the media sharing tools that have become standard in chat clients (Discord, Slack, etc.). Although it is a little early for France to choose Matrix, at least e2e is becoming more standard, and countries are endorsing it.
- Arathorn 8y agoaudit e.g.: https://www.nccgroup.trust/us/our-research/matrix-olm-cryptographic-review/ https://www.nccgroup.trust/us/our-research/matrix-olm-crypto... formal proofs e.g.: https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/v1/download/jki.re/hSmkLkFGVUnrXjtYcjsCUsyS https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/v1/download/jki.re/hSmkLkFG... Agreed that Matrix is still beta, but hopefully we are heading in the right direction and the end is in sight.
- kqr 8y agoI think I can relate to your point because I used to write comments like these. You're right. The world is desperate to pretend IRC doesn't exist. We should get a new IRC spec with e2e in mind. What surprised me is that Matrix is practically a modern IRC spec with e2e in mind. What's better is that the Matrix devs acknowledge this heritage. They don't pretend IRC doesn't exist. They're very up-front about loving IRC, and they have successfully brought over nearly every good feature of IRC into Matrix. At first I thought it was too good to be true, but it keeps on being good. I have waited for years for a decent IRC alternative which I can convince even my less technical friends and family to use, and Matrix is it. I truly feel like I'm on IRC with my family. It's insanely good. I even use the same client for both. Matrix can replace your Signal. It can replace your Telegram. It can replace your WhatsApp. It can replace your Facebook messenger. It can even replace IRC. It is that complete.
- bitmapbrother 8y agoIt will guarantee secure, end-to-end encrypted conversations without degradation of the user experience. It will be compatible with any mobile device or desktop, state or personal. Is the application they're creating also going to be open source and available for auditing?
- amandine 8y agothat is the plan, except the operational bits specific to their deployments
- wpdev_63 8y agoSo what's wronng with signal?
- ComodoHacker 8y agoNo, what's wrong with more alternatives?
- HIPisTheAnswer 8y agoYou can't run your own signal server. If that isn't huge then nothing is.
- Promarged 8y agoTo be more precise you can run your own server but it would not connect to the rest of the network (so it's useless). Source code here: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server
- ATsch 8y agoFor small private chats on your phone, not a lot, but because of a number of decisions, it does not work very well with large IRC-style rooms full of people you might not know.
- alborzmassah 8y agoWhy was Telegram and WhatsApp installation not possible before?
- TuringTest 8y agoBecause of closed source.
- fcantournet 8y agoBecause it's not sovereign.
- mike-cardwell 8y agoThis should make the Librem 5 a more attractive phone in France: https://matrix.org/blog/2017/08/24/the-librem-5-from-purism-a-matrix-native-smartphone/ https://matrix.org/blog/2017/08/24/the-librem-5-from-purism-...
- walkingdog 8y agohello i am new here and a noob. But this application messenger is only maked for France government use or also for everbody people around the world? thereby, Riot is developed by the france government. Big change it has a back-door or something. you cant trust it as a citizen. correct me if i wrong but this sound like a honey pot to me.