3 ms·

If you go to matrix.org and look at the list of about a dozen or so servers: you will find that none of them actually work except the reference implementation,

If you go to matrix.org and look at the list of about a dozen or so servers: you will find that none of them actually work except the reference implementation, and maybe sometimes Construct. Even thus, the phrase "able to build" is questionable. I have spent months reverse-engineering their software and its interactions before, and after, it was at all documented in this so-called standard (by the way, it's just documentation of their software -- errata and all (and rather poor)). Construct server is the single survivor out of the ones listed and even more who have attempted and given up early which we don't know about. That being said, it is still incomplete.

feanaro 8y ago
Doesn't this just sound as a rather complex and young protocol that is still in development? I've never gotten the impression of the New Vector guys deliberately misguiding others out of malice. Does Construct work as a Matrix homeserver or does it not? Regarding your insecurity claims, is there any particular area where Matrix has concrete weaknesses? Could you elaborate on that point? As a sidenote: I really appreciate your work and think new homeserver implementations are invaluable.
- jasonzemos 8y ago
  Whether or not they are deliberarely misguiding is arguable. It's a great example of the classic Incompetence vs. Malice dichotomy: the maxim is that one should never attribute malice to incompetence, and that's where I lean here, slightly. The fact is though that they have little to no interest in third parties writing servers. They love clients, and protocol briges. They love people putting in the effort to present their system to more users on diverse platforms and make them popular; servers are a risk to their interests. Servers have control. I can quote the CEO of new vector in an argument we had about the insecurities of the protocol and what needs to be done to fix them where he said "good luck talking to your own federation." That reveals a lot. A popular server controls the federation. It controls the de facto standard. If their server isn't the most popular they lose control. This is how they operate the standard -- on an ad hoc de facto basis. If they lose control they lose velocity and value as a for-profit enterprise. The matrix is all about control, just like the movie, ironically. The protocol is deeply insecure. It's modeled on ideas robbed from blockchain Merkel trees and directed acyclic graphs for eventual consistency. But they don't use either properly. At the protocol level blocks in the chain are not identified by their hash, they're identified by arbitrary strings. The blocks have hashes but their implementation does not check the hash. Read that again. The DAG allows for arbitrary insertion of blocks into the chain. Are these backdoors? Probably not. They're just idiots. And they don't give a shit unless, maybe, they're pressed to.

feanaro 8y ago

Doesn't this just sound as a rather complex and young protocol that is still in development? I've never gotten the impression of the New Vector guys deliberately misguiding others out of malice. Does Construct work as a Matrix homeserver or does it not? Regarding your insecurity claims, is there any particular area where Matrix has concrete weaknesses? Could you elaborate on that point? As a sidenote: I really appreciate your work and think new homeserver implementations are invaluable.

jasonzemos 8y ago
Whether or not they are deliberarely misguiding is arguable. It's a great example of the classic Incompetence vs. Malice dichotomy: the maxim is that one should never attribute malice to incompetence, and that's where I lean here, slightly. The fact is though that they have little to no interest in third parties writing servers. They love clients, and protocol briges. They love people putting in the effort to present their system to more users on diverse platforms and make them popular; servers are a risk to their interests. Servers have control. I can quote the CEO of new vector in an argument we had about the insecurities of the protocol and what needs to be done to fix them where he said "good luck talking to your own federation." That reveals a lot. A popular server controls the federation. It controls the de facto standard. If their server isn't the most popular they lose control. This is how they operate the standard -- on an ad hoc de facto basis. If they lose control they lose velocity and value as a for-profit enterprise. The matrix is all about control, just like the movie, ironically. The protocol is deeply insecure. It's modeled on ideas robbed from blockchain Merkel trees and directed acyclic graphs for eventual consistency. But they don't use either properly. At the protocol level blocks in the chain are not identified by their hash, they're identified by arbitrary strings. The blocks have hashes but their implementation does not check the hash. Read that again. The DAG allows for arbitrary insertion of blocks into the chain. Are these backdoors? Probably not. They're just idiots. And they don't give a shit unless, maybe, they're pressed to.