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NOTE: I don't know what Zom is so ignoring it in the below. Viber, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Threema and Discord are all built on the same paradigm: accounts

NOTE: I don't know what Zom is so ignoring it in the below. Viber, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Threema and Discord are all built on the same paradigm: accounts tied to a single service and thus the inertia of network effect makes vendor lock-in a real problem when acquisitions happen or Terms of Service change. Signal is in theory the "best" of these 5 options in the short-term, but it being open source is utterly irrelevant when you consider the network effect lock-in of a single-service model. In fact, Telegram is probably a "more open" option given the portability its API provides. Openness vs privacy/security are entirely different concerns in isolation, but I believe openness is most important for providing a model upon which privacy can be sustained in the longer term. Of course Matrix is the only truly long-term sustainable option of these. Encouraging users to move to any of the others will only lead to this discussion re-occurring down the line. And being ultimately more difficult as platform-switching fatigue intensifies.

josephg 6y ago
Moxie Marlinspike (the guy behind Signal) talked about his rationale for making signal centralized here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj3YFprqAr8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj3YFprqAr8 Its been a year and I'm still not sure if I agree with him - which is the sign of a very juicy talk!
- lucideer 6y ago
  I watched that at the time. I found his insistence on comparing his 7-year-old centralised protocol to a 60-year-old federated protocol uncompelling: his point that "nothing changes with federated protocols" was slightly undermined by that gargantuan gap of inception. Couple that with the highly conspicuous skipping over of XMPP (much more comparable, only the briefest of mentions, no mention of things like OMEMO), and ignoring of Matrix (the most comparable, and not a single mention). Overall it's a pretty ridiculous talk in this context. He goes on to describe some challenges for federated protocols in their solutions to censorship, availability & control. On censorship, the challenges are real and it's QUITE EASY to reason about possible solutions. Many of which already exist or are in development. It's clear he hasn't spent much time thinking about this. On availability, his entire argument is "Yahoo mail exists"; his discussion here is just straight-up disingenuous. Finally, on control, he segues into unrelated areas around XMPP extensibility and seems to think extensions have no value without ubiquity (though fails to expand on his reasons for this conclusion). I'd agree XMPP's XEPs are highly flawed architecturally, but again... there's newer protocols, we've learned and evolved this already. Leaving aside that the bulk of the middle of the talk is exclusively selling new features ("new techniques") of Signal that have no direct connection to the talk's stated topic ("distributed and decentralized technology"), there are a few salient points he made that I'd agree with: 1. Federated & decentralised protocols are by their nature harder to do, and harder/slower to change. This is true, but is by no means an absolute; it's a trade-off against other benefits. 2. E2E encrypted email is too hard and probably not worth doing. Yes, PGP is highly flawed, and in general layering encryption on top of a 60-year-old protocol is hard. (Though as above, his insistence on focusing only on email for comparison rather than Signal's direct viable competitors is telling). 3. Signal's E2E/crypto-specific innovations are cool, and current federated state-of-the-art is behind on many of them.
- Triv888 6y ago
  You have to include an update mechanism in the core of distributed software?
- godelski 6y ago
  I think it makes more sense to use federated protocols after you've reached a certain critical mass of features and usability. Look how much Signal has improved in the last 6 months. That would be harder with a federated system as people just don't update apps. I'll buy a push for Signal to become federated when it is fully featured (which may be pretty soon). Also at that point, what is to stop people from making a federated Signal? Or creating a fork that allows contact with the centralized server AND a federated space? Is it impossible to have a mixture?
  - josephg 6y ago
    > I think it makes more sense to use federated protocols after you've reached a certain critical mass of features and usability. Look how much Signal has improved in the last 6 months. I agree with this, but I’m starting to worry if that time will ever come. I thought messaging apps had basically all the features they’d ever need years ago. But I was wrong. I use voice messages in signal and WhatsApp daily now. If it were up to me, we would have made a federation protocol years ago and these features would have to have been figured out through endless meetings in a standards process.
    - godelski 6y ago
      I don't think federation solves that, in fact I think it makes it more difficult. Signal is open source and we're constantly seeing people complain on here about its lack of features or whatever. If we can't convince the most populous location for programmers to help in that respect then how could we do it for a federated network? And even the server is open sources. So I don't see why you couldn't have a fork that is federated. Or an app that is able to talk to both the centralized server and federated servers. It seems more a will problem than anything else and I don't see why Moxie and the Signal team would focus on these features above other features that are actually helping get people on the platform (arguably more important than any aspect).
enumjorge 6y ago
That may be true, but I can’t encourage my social circle to move to an alternative that isn’t polished and has a great user experience for non-technical users. It’s a non starter. Even if I did, the moment they start using it and a) it’s confusing b) most of their circle is using something else, they’ll a) drop it b) ignore my future suggestions :). Take Matrix for example. I had heard of it but hadn’t really looked into it until now. There’s no official client, so you have to find your own. That’s already a barrier of entry for someone like my mom. Then I look led through their list of client apps, and it’s the usual issues with free client apps. They don’t look great, and the reviews claim they’re rough around the edges. Even my eyes glaze over at the thought of having to try out 3-4 different clients to find the one I like. I’d the goal is to move our communication infrastructure to use more open standards we have be realistic. And right now from what I can see, Matrix is still a solution for and by technical people. Asking my parents to move to it isn’t realistic at the moment.
- Unklejoe 6y ago
  > There’s no official client For all intents and purposes, Element is the official client. It used to be called Riot, but was recently renamed. Honestly, I think they should have just called it "Matrix". I'm guessing they didn't do that because they want to promote the concept of multiple clients without any single "official" client, but it would really simplify things. As of now, I have to tell people "Use Matrix, but you need this app called Element to get on to it". It's confusing for a lot of people.
  - lucideer 6y ago
    > As of now, I have to tell people "Use Matrix, but you need this app called Element to get on to it". It's confusing for a lot of people. It is but I've found the email analogy helpful: prefixing your explanation with "it's like email" tends to open even non-technical people's mind to the idea of multiple clients + a unified protocol.
- lucideer 6y ago
  I've been encouraging my social circle to try FluffyChat[0]. I've only recently tried it myself but I would describe the client's I've tried as: - Riot/RiotX/Element is like Slack on Matrix - FluffyChat is like WhatsApp on Matrix [0] https://fluffychat.im/ https://fluffychat.im/
ipodopt 6y ago
> Viber, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Threema and Discord are all built on the same paradigm: accounts tied to a single service and thus the inertia of network effect makes vendor lock-in a real problem when acquisitions happen or Terms of Service change From a purely technical perspective. However, how organization is structured and who is in it matters: https://signalfoundation.org/ https://signalfoundation.org/ I am in the camp that there are alot of things we try to solve (and sacrifice things like usability) at a technical level that we should be solving at a social level.
- lucideer 6y ago
  > I am in the camp that there are alot of things we try to solve (and sacrifice things like usability) at a technical level that we should be solving at a social level. I agree in theory but unfortunately I think we need both. I have little confidence in either on it's own. And I've been burned too much by vendor lock-in in the past to ever advocate for ANY service that isn't federated (I use many non-federated services but out of necessity, I would never sell others on them). I should add that successful & popular federated online messaging services are something we've had since the 1960s so I have yet to see any compelling reason to be perpetuating the walled-garden approach beyond a preference for a totalitarian approach to ecosystem control.
  - ipodopt 6y ago
    > I should add that successful & popular federated online messaging services are something we've had since the 1960s so I have yet to see any compelling reason to be perpetuating the walled-garden approach beyond a preference for a totalitarian approach to ecosystem control. Touche, but if they were there before why aren't they "here" in popular adoption? I think, although it is perfectly technically feasible in a vacuum it is not in real life. Because it requires that all your common contacts (friends, family) use it. The question isn't whether you can do but whether you can be easier to use and offer more feature then the competition. Most people don't care. You need to be competitive. From a technical perceptive you will have to spend more, make less, and have decreased usability for privacy, and federation. So picking any one is already shooting your self in the foot. Pick two and you aren't going anywhere. Simplified argument but Signal picks to minimum they feel they need to do to see change they want. And I am big fan of this method. I am tired of projects with good intentions not getting adoption.

josephg 6y ago

Moxie Marlinspike (the guy behind Signal) talked about his rationale for making signal centralized here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj3YFprqAr8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj3YFprqAr8 Its been a year and I'm still not sure if I agree with him - which is the sign of a very juicy talk!

lucideer 6y ago
I watched that at the time. I found his insistence on comparing his 7-year-old centralised protocol to a 60-year-old federated protocol uncompelling: his point that "nothing changes with federated protocols" was slightly undermined by that gargantuan gap of inception. Couple that with the highly conspicuous skipping over of XMPP (much more comparable, only the briefest of mentions, no mention of things like OMEMO), and ignoring of Matrix (the most comparable, and not a single mention). Overall it's a pretty ridiculous talk in this context. He goes on to describe some challenges for federated protocols in their solutions to censorship, availability & control. On censorship, the challenges are real and it's QUITE EASY to reason about possible solutions. Many of which already exist or are in development. It's clear he hasn't spent much time thinking about this. On availability, his entire argument is "Yahoo mail exists"; his discussion here is just straight-up disingenuous. Finally, on control, he segues into unrelated areas around XMPP extensibility and seems to think extensions have no value without ubiquity (though fails to expand on his reasons for this conclusion). I'd agree XMPP's XEPs are highly flawed architecturally, but again... there's newer protocols, we've learned and evolved this already. Leaving aside that the bulk of the middle of the talk is exclusively selling new features ("new techniques") of Signal that have no direct connection to the talk's stated topic ("distributed and decentralized technology"), there are a few salient points he made that I'd agree with: 1. Federated & decentralised protocols are by their nature harder to do, and harder/slower to change. This is true, but is by no means an absolute; it's a trade-off against other benefits. 2. E2E encrypted email is too hard and probably not worth doing. Yes, PGP is highly flawed, and in general layering encryption on top of a 60-year-old protocol is hard. (Though as above, his insistence on focusing only on email for comparison rather than Signal's direct viable competitors is telling). 3. Signal's E2E/crypto-specific innovations are cool, and current federated state-of-the-art is behind on many of them.
Triv888 6y ago
You have to include an update mechanism in the core of distributed software?
godelski 6y ago
I think it makes more sense to use federated protocols after you've reached a certain critical mass of features and usability. Look how much Signal has improved in the last 6 months. That would be harder with a federated system as people just don't update apps. I'll buy a push for Signal to become federated when it is fully featured (which may be pretty soon). Also at that point, what is to stop people from making a federated Signal? Or creating a fork that allows contact with the centralized server AND a federated space? Is it impossible to have a mixture?
- josephg 6y ago
  > I think it makes more sense to use federated protocols after you've reached a certain critical mass of features and usability. Look how much Signal has improved in the last 6 months. I agree with this, but I’m starting to worry if that time will ever come. I thought messaging apps had basically all the features they’d ever need years ago. But I was wrong. I use voice messages in signal and WhatsApp daily now. If it were up to me, we would have made a federation protocol years ago and these features would have to have been figured out through endless meetings in a standards process.
  - godelski 6y ago
    I don't think federation solves that, in fact I think it makes it more difficult. Signal is open source and we're constantly seeing people complain on here about its lack of features or whatever. If we can't convince the most populous location for programmers to help in that respect then how could we do it for a federated network? And even the server is open sources. So I don't see why you couldn't have a fork that is federated. Or an app that is able to talk to both the centralized server and federated servers. It seems more a will problem than anything else and I don't see why Moxie and the Signal team would focus on these features above other features that are actually helping get people on the platform (arguably more important than any aspect).

enumjorge 6y ago

That may be true, but I can’t encourage my social circle to move to an alternative that isn’t polished and has a great user experience for non-technical users. It’s a non starter. Even if I did, the moment they start using it and a) it’s confusing b) most of their circle is using something else, they’ll a) drop it b) ignore my future suggestions :). Take Matrix for example. I had heard of it but hadn’t really looked into it until now. There’s no official client, so you have to find your own. That’s already a barrier of entry for someone like my mom. Then I look led through their list of client apps, and it’s the usual issues with free client apps. They don’t look great, and the reviews claim they’re rough around the edges. Even my eyes glaze over at the thought of having to try out 3-4 different clients to find the one I like. I’d the goal is to move our communication infrastructure to use more open standards we have be realistic. And right now from what I can see, Matrix is still a solution for and by technical people. Asking my parents to move to it isn’t realistic at the moment.

Unklejoe 6y ago
> There’s no official client For all intents and purposes, Element is the official client. It used to be called Riot, but was recently renamed. Honestly, I think they should have just called it "Matrix". I'm guessing they didn't do that because they want to promote the concept of multiple clients without any single "official" client, but it would really simplify things. As of now, I have to tell people "Use Matrix, but you need this app called Element to get on to it". It's confusing for a lot of people.
- lucideer 6y ago
  > As of now, I have to tell people "Use Matrix, but you need this app called Element to get on to it". It's confusing for a lot of people. It is but I've found the email analogy helpful: prefixing your explanation with "it's like email" tends to open even non-technical people's mind to the idea of multiple clients + a unified protocol.
lucideer 6y ago
I've been encouraging my social circle to try FluffyChat[0]. I've only recently tried it myself but I would describe the client's I've tried as: - Riot/RiotX/Element is like Slack on Matrix - FluffyChat is like WhatsApp on Matrix [0] https://fluffychat.im/ https://fluffychat.im/

ipodopt 6y ago

> Viber, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Threema and Discord are all built on the same paradigm: accounts tied to a single service and thus the inertia of network effect makes vendor lock-in a real problem when acquisitions happen or Terms of Service change From a purely technical perspective. However, how organization is structured and who is in it matters: https://signalfoundation.org/ https://signalfoundation.org/ I am in the camp that there are alot of things we try to solve (and sacrifice things like usability) at a technical level that we should be solving at a social level.

lucideer 6y ago
> I am in the camp that there are alot of things we try to solve (and sacrifice things like usability) at a technical level that we should be solving at a social level. I agree in theory but unfortunately I think we need both. I have little confidence in either on it's own. And I've been burned too much by vendor lock-in in the past to ever advocate for ANY service that isn't federated (I use many non-federated services but out of necessity, I would never sell others on them). I should add that successful & popular federated online messaging services are something we've had since the 1960s so I have yet to see any compelling reason to be perpetuating the walled-garden approach beyond a preference for a totalitarian approach to ecosystem control.
- ipodopt 6y ago
  > I should add that successful & popular federated online messaging services are something we've had since the 1960s so I have yet to see any compelling reason to be perpetuating the walled-garden approach beyond a preference for a totalitarian approach to ecosystem control. Touche, but if they were there before why aren't they "here" in popular adoption? I think, although it is perfectly technically feasible in a vacuum it is not in real life. Because it requires that all your common contacts (friends, family) use it. The question isn't whether you can do but whether you can be easier to use and offer more feature then the competition. Most people don't care. You need to be competitive. From a technical perceptive you will have to spend more, make less, and have decreased usability for privacy, and federation. So picking any one is already shooting your self in the foot. Pick two and you aren't going anywhere. Simplified argument but Signal picks to minimum they feel they need to do to see change they want. And I am big fan of this method. I am tired of projects with good intentions not getting adoption.