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Moxie (Signal Founder) gave a talk about the issues with federation at CCC in 2020, he took a crazy amount of flak for it, a lot of it from the Matrix community

by seanieb 10mo ago

Moxie (Signal Founder) gave a talk about the issues with federation at CCC in 2020, he took a crazy amount of flak for it, a lot of it from the Matrix community. Lots of the issue highlighted are in this post. https://youtu.be/DdM-XTRyC9c https://youtu.be/DdM-XTRyC9c

dijit 10mo ago
Yeah, but it boiled down to “we want to move fast and modify the client on our whim”. Which, is fair, but if absolute control of the client is required then there’s no benefit to E2EE.
- 0_____0 10mo ago
  The message I got was more "decentralized services have major coordination issues that prevent them from adapting to changing needs". Also a major point in Signal's development philosophy is building a comms platform that doesn't require that you trust them, because the protocol is built in a way that leaks the absolute minimum of data about the user necessary to make the service usable for the general public.
0_____0 10mo ago
Just gave it a listen. A lot of what he asserts seems pretty obvious with many examples e.g. the ones he give about IP, DNS, email etc. Centralized movers will always have the advantage of coordination, so decentralized systems have to have a damn good raison d'etre that's immediately obvious (e.g. Tor) or else be eventually consigned to niche use in highly idealistic communities.
dang 10mo ago
These discussions look related. Others? Why federated protocols don't work (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30314454 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30314454 - Feb 2022 (130 comments) The Ecosystem Is Moving [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21904041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21904041 - Dec 2019 (90 comments) Reflections: The ecosystem is moving - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11668912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11668912 - May 2016 (99 comments)
jcgl 10mo ago
Here’s his original blog post from 2016: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ I go back and re-read this pretty much every time a decentralized thing has problems. It rings true.

by seanieb 10mo ago

dijit 10mo ago

Yeah, but it boiled down to “we want to move fast and modify the client on our whim”. Which, is fair, but if absolute control of the client is required then there’s no benefit to E2EE.

0_____0 10mo ago
The message I got was more "decentralized services have major coordination issues that prevent them from adapting to changing needs". Also a major point in Signal's development philosophy is building a comms platform that doesn't require that you trust them, because the protocol is built in a way that leaks the absolute minimum of data about the user necessary to make the service usable for the general public.

0_____0 10mo ago

Just gave it a listen. A lot of what he asserts seems pretty obvious with many examples e.g. the ones he give about IP, DNS, email etc. Centralized movers will always have the advantage of coordination, so decentralized systems have to have a damn good raison d'etre that's immediately obvious (e.g. Tor) or else be eventually consigned to niche use in highly idealistic communities.

dang 10mo ago

These discussions look related. Others? Why federated protocols don't work (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30314454 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30314454 - Feb 2022 (130 comments) The Ecosystem Is Moving [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21904041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21904041 - Dec 2019 (90 comments) Reflections: The ecosystem is moving - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11668912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11668912 - May 2016 (99 comments)

jcgl 10mo ago

Here’s his original blog post from 2016: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ I go back and re-read this pretty much every time a decentralized thing has problems. It rings true.