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I like Telegram, but I‘m not sure it is the prime candidate for privacy / secure communication. Hopefully Matrix gains traction. Element is getting better but i

I like Telegram, but I‘m not sure it is the prime candidate for privacy / secure communication. Hopefully Matrix gains traction. Element is getting better but is still full of bugs...

xiphias2 6y ago
I couldn't see Matrix in the play store, the web page is unusable: I wanted to try it, not ,,learn more''. I installed Element, but it required username/password pair. I understand that it's a bit more secure than using phone number+email for first authentication, but it makes discovery of friends too hard. It trades too much UX for security, just like PGP.
- WanderPanda 6y ago
  > It trades too much UX for security, just like PGP. Thats similar to what eMail does, it trades UX for [nothing] (would place decentralisation there if it were not for gmail etc.)
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    Email is used for historical reasons, it wouldn't be good enough as a new service. If it disappeared, everybody would be just using Facebook for authentication / connecting with services.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  I've not tried installing Element, but I imagine the app could gain the feature of automatically generating a password for you. Asking a user to select a username when joining a chat network seems like a reasonable UX, although having to pick a server is an extra burden. Perhaps the creators of the app could partner with some big providers to allow the app to try creating your account on one of these providers at random (and keep trying different providers if your intended name is already taken on one that it tries). I also agree with you about discovery of friends being hard unless users provide their phone numbers to a central server, so perhaps there should be an option for that when creating your account. This central database could run by an independent, audited, third party service. I'm not sure who could be trusted in that role (perhaps Let's Encrypt?), or how much it would cost, but it's an interesting thought experiment.

I like Telegram, but I‘m not sure it is the prime candidate for privacy / secure communication. Hopefully Matrix gains traction. Element is getting better but is still full of bugs...

xiphias2 6y ago

I couldn't see Matrix in the play store, the web page is unusable: I wanted to try it, not ,,learn more''. I installed Element, but it required username/password pair. I understand that it's a bit more secure than using phone number+email for first authentication, but it makes discovery of friends too hard. It trades too much UX for security, just like PGP.

WanderPanda 6y ago
> It trades too much UX for security, just like PGP. Thats similar to what eMail does, it trades UX for [nothing] (would place decentralisation there if it were not for gmail etc.)
- xiphias2 6y ago
  Email is used for historical reasons, it wouldn't be good enough as a new service. If it disappeared, everybody would be just using Facebook for authentication / connecting with services.
dane-pgp 6y ago
I've not tried installing Element, but I imagine the app could gain the feature of automatically generating a password for you. Asking a user to select a username when joining a chat network seems like a reasonable UX, although having to pick a server is an extra burden. Perhaps the creators of the app could partner with some big providers to allow the app to try creating your account on one of these providers at random (and keep trying different providers if your intended name is already taken on one that it tries). I also agree with you about discovery of friends being hard unless users provide their phone numbers to a central server, so perhaps there should be an option for that when creating your account. This central database could run by an independent, audited, third party service. I'm not sure who could be trusted in that role (perhaps Let's Encrypt?), or how much it would cost, but it's an interesting thought experiment.