4 ms·

matrix

Gigachad 4y ago
I have been wondering how censorship resistant matrix is. As far as I know, groups are not hosted on any particular server, it’s some kind of shared consensus. I suppose the moderators would still be at risk of hosting platforms and ISPs dropping their homeserver.
betwixthewires 4y ago
Matrix is great, but it leaks a ton of data.
- fsflover 4y ago
  To whom? AFAIK if you self-host, no data is leaked.
  - rakoo 4y ago
    If you and everyone you talk to are hosted on servers you trust, down to the physical provider, yes. EDIT: if the person you're talking to is hosted on Google, Google has all the metadata. Even if one person is hosted on Google and is part of a room you're in, Google has all the metadata in that room. In 2022 e2ee is the standard for messages but not metadata, and unfortunately Matrix doesn't tackle it, so no, you can't expect 100% privacy.
    - cfhhgtyg 4y ago
      Signal is hosted on Amazon
      - rakoo 4y ago
        But the backend of Signal doesn't store who talks to who, so Amazon can't have that information. It also doesn't store what groups exist and who is part of it.
        cfhhgtyg 4y ago
        Nobody knows that except amazon and signal. Would be interesting to know if Amazon could reconstruct that information without Signals knowledge
- cfhhgtyg 4y ago
  So does Signal: who when with whom Matrix does leak more meta data though, e.g. message relationships for instance, but what does that matter?
  - brational 4y ago
    That's false - Signal has had sealed sender on by default since 2018. (the setting you can turn on is just to see an icon in the ui).
    - cfhhgtyg 4y ago
      No, see. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33355126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33355126
jraph 4y ago
I thought Matrix homeservers had access to way more metadata than Signal. Is it better than what I thought?
- mlatu 4y ago
  you can easily run your own. though you will need lotsa RAM for federation if you use synapse (mine keeps bogging down now after a year of mild use (could also be a bug idk, it allocates all the RAM and then nothing goes), now im waiting for the new server software dendrite to be able to migrate from synapse... allthough i wouldnt lose much if i just nuked the synapse instance)
  - jraph 4y ago
    > you can easily run your own. Yes, and I have in the past. But that does not solve the issue completely. If the police asks me some information about one of my contacts, I'll have some metadata stored in my homeserver, and I'll need to hand it over. And vice versa. It's better that the server does not have access to this information at all in the first place.
- cfhhgtyg 4y ago
  What does it matter to additionally leak relationships between nessages, such as deletes or replies? Most important is who when with who which both leak to the server operators
  - jraph 4y ago
    Not at all like Signal. They only have your account creation time and your last connection time https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-as-the-world-moves-forward/ https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-as-the-world-moves-forw... (edit: answering to your initial message, that said that Signal operators also have access to the same metadata, but I guess my comment still answers your sentence "Most important is who when with who which both leak to the server operators" - Signal operators have showed they can't provide this information)
brational 4y ago
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/09/matrix-patches-vulnerabilities-that-completely-subvert-e2ee-guarantees/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/09/matri...

matrix

I have been wondering how censorship resistant matrix is. As far as I know, groups are not hosted on any particular server, it’s some kind of shared consensus. I suppose the moderators would still be at risk of hosting platforms and ISPs dropping their homeserver.

betwixthewires 4y ago

Matrix is great, but it leaks a ton of data.

fsflover 4y ago
To whom? AFAIK if you self-host, no data is leaked.
- rakoo 4y ago
  If you and everyone you talk to are hosted on servers you trust, down to the physical provider, yes. EDIT: if the person you're talking to is hosted on Google, Google has all the metadata. Even if one person is hosted on Google and is part of a room you're in, Google has all the metadata in that room. In 2022 e2ee is the standard for messages but not metadata, and unfortunately Matrix doesn't tackle it, so no, you can't expect 100% privacy.
  - cfhhgtyg 4y ago
    Signal is hosted on Amazon
    - rakoo 4y ago
      But the backend of Signal doesn't store who talks to who, so Amazon can't have that information. It also doesn't store what groups exist and who is part of it.
      - cfhhgtyg 4y ago
        Nobody knows that except amazon and signal. Would be interesting to know if Amazon could reconstruct that information without Signals knowledge
cfhhgtyg 4y ago
So does Signal: who when with whom Matrix does leak more meta data though, e.g. message relationships for instance, but what does that matter?
- brational 4y ago
  That's false - Signal has had sealed sender on by default since 2018. (the setting you can turn on is just to see an icon in the ui).
  - cfhhgtyg 4y ago
    No, see. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33355126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33355126

jraph 4y ago

I thought Matrix homeservers had access to way more metadata than Signal. Is it better than what I thought?

mlatu 4y ago
you can easily run your own. though you will need lotsa RAM for federation if you use synapse (mine keeps bogging down now after a year of mild use (could also be a bug idk, it allocates all the RAM and then nothing goes), now im waiting for the new server software dendrite to be able to migrate from synapse... allthough i wouldnt lose much if i just nuked the synapse instance)
- jraph 4y ago
  > you can easily run your own. Yes, and I have in the past. But that does not solve the issue completely. If the police asks me some information about one of my contacts, I'll have some metadata stored in my homeserver, and I'll need to hand it over. And vice versa. It's better that the server does not have access to this information at all in the first place.
cfhhgtyg 4y ago
What does it matter to additionally leak relationships between nessages, such as deletes or replies? Most important is who when with who which both leak to the server operators
- jraph 4y ago
  Not at all like Signal. They only have your account creation time and your last connection time https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-as-the-world-moves-forward/ https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-as-the-world-moves-forw... (edit: answering to your initial message, that said that Signal operators also have access to the same metadata, but I guess my comment still answers your sentence "Most important is who when with who which both leak to the server operators" - Signal operators have showed they can't provide this information)

brational 4y ago

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/09/matrix-patches-vulnerabilities-that-completely-subvert-e2ee-guarantees/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/09/matri...