3 ms·

I think they are saying a clientside bridge will relay the messages to the Matrix server, so the messages only need to be received from the external provider on

I think they are saying a clientside bridge will relay the messages to the Matrix server, so the messages only need to be received from the external provider once, and can then be accessed on any device that's signed into the same Matrix account.

Arathorn 5y ago
Technically, the Matrix server could also be running clientside - i.e. it could be P2P Matrix (https://matrix.org/blog/2020/06/02/introducing-p-2-p-matrix https://matrix.org/blog/2020/06/02/introducing-p-2-p-matrix). At which point you could almost think of the architecture as being a multihead messenger, but with the protocol-specific bits decoupled from the rest of the app... and with your chat history encrypted and magically decentralised over the various participating devices.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  One consequence of the DMA seems to be that people will finally be able to choose to have just one account on the one messaging service they like, and use that to connect to anyone else, no matter what services those contacts use. Does P2P Matrix take things a step further, though, potentially allowing people to have zero accounts, and just having a private key file on their device (or synched between multiple devices) and a display name of their choosing?
  - Arathorn 5y ago
    yup :>
  - paxys 5y ago
    > potentially allowing people to have zero accounts, and just having a private key file on their device (or synched between multiple devices) and a display name of their choosing Isn't that what an "account" ultimately is? You need a way to tell the server – "route all messages to and from me using this identifier". That ID can be a display name, or a phone number (like WhatsApp), or email or whatever else. And the server has to persist that ID on their end and associate it with your current session.
    - dane-pgp 5y ago
      Yes, but I think I was imagining a world without servers. For example, you could update your IP address (for people to contact you at) by sending a signed message to a global DHT, or, for more privacy, put the address of your current rendezvous server in the DHT instead. The rendezvous server would be responsible for forwarding incoming connections to you, which you could refuse based on the public key of the initiator. If the rendezvous server only stores a lookup between your public key and IP address, perhaps only in memory, for a few hours, before you switch to a different rendezvous server, that doesn't feel like having an "account" on a server.

Arathorn 5y ago

Technically, the Matrix server could also be running clientside - i.e. it could be P2P Matrix (https://matrix.org/blog/2020/06/02/introducing-p-2-p-matrix https://matrix.org/blog/2020/06/02/introducing-p-2-p-matrix). At which point you could almost think of the architecture as being a multihead messenger, but with the protocol-specific bits decoupled from the rest of the app... and with your chat history encrypted and magically decentralised over the various participating devices.

dane-pgp 5y ago
One consequence of the DMA seems to be that people will finally be able to choose to have just one account on the one messaging service they like, and use that to connect to anyone else, no matter what services those contacts use. Does P2P Matrix take things a step further, though, potentially allowing people to have zero accounts, and just having a private key file on their device (or synched between multiple devices) and a display name of their choosing?
- Arathorn 5y ago
  yup :>
- paxys 5y ago
  > potentially allowing people to have zero accounts, and just having a private key file on their device (or synched between multiple devices) and a display name of their choosing Isn't that what an "account" ultimately is? You need a way to tell the server – "route all messages to and from me using this identifier". That ID can be a display name, or a phone number (like WhatsApp), or email or whatever else. And the server has to persist that ID on their end and associate it with your current session.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    Yes, but I think I was imagining a world without servers. For example, you could update your IP address (for people to contact you at) by sending a signed message to a global DHT, or, for more privacy, put the address of your current rendezvous server in the DHT instead. The rendezvous server would be responsible for forwarding incoming connections to you, which you could refuse based on the public key of the initiator. If the rendezvous server only stores a lookup between your public key and IP address, perhaps only in memory, for a few hours, before you switch to a different rendezvous server, that doesn't feel like having an "account" on a server.